ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Interoperability as Federation of Collaborations in Contemporary Cosmology

• In Event: New Perspectives on Collaboration in Science 2

English Abstract

Cosmology has shifted toward large, complex datasets produced by many separate teams and missions: the era of data-driven cosmology. A few examples: the Euclid telescope will generate 850 gigabits of daily data over its six-year mission; the DESI survey has already delivered spectra and redshifts for 1.2 million galaxies and quasars with its early dataset of 80 terabytes representing just 2% of the expected total; the James Webb Space Telescope provides tens of gigabytes of daily data, which will help us unfold the universe’s history and will give us more precise cosmological distance measurements. To make the most out of the resulting datasets, scientists are now paying more attention to the interoperability of data. In practice, they co-develop and adopt shared calibrations; publish machine-readable bandpasses; harmonize data levels and exchange formats; and record common, queryable provenance. I propose that we can fruitfully interpret these interoperability efforts as a collaboration between independent collaborations: a federation of collaborations. Instead of merging into a single large-team, groups maintain their distinct methods and governance but actively co-develop standards, blinding rules, and exchange formats. This allows their results to be integrated into joint analyses without the need for extensive and error-prone retrofitting. This interpretation reveals the profound epistemic stakes: interoperability is not mere technical housekeeping but a form of governance that actively manages dependence across teams, preserves valuable methodological pluralism, and enables the transparent, robust combination of evidence.

Author

• marco forgione, university of milan