Almost 50 years ago, the first World Data Centers (WDC) have been founded through the International Council for Scientific Unions (ICSU) in order to archive and distribute data collected from the observational programs of the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year. Originally established in the United States, Europe, Russia, and Japan, the WDC system has since expanded to 53 centers in 12 countries. Its holdings include a wide range of solar, geophysical, environmental, and human dimensions data covering timescales ranging from seconds to millennia and providing baseline information for research in many ICSU disciplines, especially for monitoring changes in the geosphere and biosphere-gradual or sudden, foreseen or unexpected, natural or man-made.The conference was hosted by WDC-MARE, the World Data Centre for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM, University of Bremen, Germany), and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (Bremerhaven, Germany). Among the 31 WDCs and 70 conference participants, Bernard Minster and Hartmut Grassl, ICSU Panel on World Data Centers chairs, honored the accomplishments of 50 years scientific data management and contemplated past deficiencies and future requirements. In order to revise a 50 years old structure and to develop appropriate short- and medium-term strategies, the conference was dedicated to four main subjects.