Technical Guidelines - Handling of late data submission or critically incomplete data

ICES launched the first official calls for data in 2012 in support of the single-stock and mixed-fisheries advice of demersal stocks in the North Sea ecoregion. Since then, data calls have been an integrated element in the advisory process and covers almost all of the fisheries-dependent data required. Fisheries-independent data (survey data) needed in the advisory process are in most cases not included in the data calls. For the expert groups/workshops for which no data call is issued, the transmission of data is done informally.

The main objectives of the data calls are to: (i) improve awareness of all data needed; (ii) obtain data in a standard format; (iii) ensure data are available in a timely manner; (iv) enhance accountability and transparency; (v) facilitate recurrent data delivery by standardizing the process; and (vi) document the data transmission from ICES Member Countries to ICES.

The deadline to submit data is usually three to two weeks before the start of the expert group/workshop meetings. There are many examples of the deadline not being met and data not being available prior to the meeting, or only a few days before. In a few cases some data have not been available until late in the meeting.

Late data transmission (or late revision) makes it difficult, and in some cases impossible, for the experts to do the agreed preparatory work. This means that the expert groups/workshops often use a substantial part of the meeting finalizing assessments or other work that should have been prepared before the meeting.