One way to understand scientific clouds is to look at where people work and how they share resources. Scientists working on various challenges with different kinds of resources are finding new ways to collaborate. Some are creating clouds around science projects so big they require the resources of several governments to create the shared infrastructure: the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is a prime example. Scientists from many locations come together in a single place to work together. Other collaborations are formed around particular locations, which become the subject of study for researchers from different places: the thousands of scientists involved in the International Polar Year is a prime example. Projects such as the Human Genome were initiated by a small central team, based in the UK and the US, which drew in thousands of other contributors and collaborators. Emerging fields, like nanoscience and synthetic biology, in which basic knowledge is still evolving, depend on weak ties between flexible teams drawn from many different disciplines. Other fields, like seismology and the work done by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, rely on more diffuse bottom-up networks with very little central co-ordination and lots of shared information.
Another way to think of scientific clouds is to focus on the different challenges people are tackling. Some are localised and acute challenges such as flooding or water pollution. Others are global and acute challenges such as the spread of SARS or the H1N1 virus. These acute challenges often lead to loose, emergent and rapid response science to help find solutions to an urgent problem. The Boston Children’s Hospital has created a real-time world health map showing where disease outbreaks are being reported. The response to SARS in particular showed quite clearly that international collaboration outstripped national efforts – for instance of the Chinese – to find a solution. Chronic challenges meanwhile – global warming or poor local soil conditions – require more structured, patient and institutionalised forms of collaboration.
The chief challenge for scientists and policy-makers is to make these diffuse forms of collaboration work. As Wagner puts it:
No nation can have a fully contained science system because all parts of science interact with and support each other. To create knowledge, scientists must find ways to identify and connect to each other. As a result the goal of policy should be to create the most open and fluid system possible.39
Cloud Culture: the future of global cultural relations Page 6