ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

A New World of Data? How Charting Past Asymmetries in Scientific Data Can Shift Our Perspective on Their Current International Sharing Patterns

• In Event: Shifting Perspectives on Data: Revealing Imbalances in Global Scientific Networks_1

English Abstract

This presentation introduces the session by exploring the research objectives of the ERC project NEWORLD@A and its overall achievements since its launch in 2022. Over the last century science has become a data-intensive enterprise, and scientists’ contributions increasingly hinge on the datasets they use, as well as on the agreements for international sharing that make them available. Yet in the last four years the NEWORLD@A project team has uncovered how past international collaboration practices and treaties have shaped an asymmetrical sharing regime. We have first charted these global inequalities using scientometric analysis. We have subsequently examined the history of leading international data organizations and infrastructures, such as the World Data Centers system and the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), to pinpoint the deliberations and collaborative exercises paving the way to these imbalances. The project thus shows a widening gap in data availability between a few world regions benefiting from intensive data sharing, and many others increasingly marginalized from this exchange. Considering the historical evidence now available, we conclude that past data asymmetries are still present in the fabric of today’s global scientific enterprise, thus making current efforts and programmes to broaden data availability (including open access provisions) effective only to a limited extent.

Author

• Simone Turchetti, University of Manchester