COSPAR's programme of Capacity-Building Workshops - An up-date

The availability of large archives of data from space missions via the internet provides an important research opportunity for scientists in developing countries. The aim of the COSPAR Capacity-Building Workshop programme is to ensure this opportunity is taken up as widely as possible. The character of the workshops and the programme for the first 5 years are described. Evaluation of the longer-term results of the first workshop which was held in Brazil in 2001 show that a good proportion of participants have used archival data and have produced publishable results from it. Some comments are made about future development of the programme.