Coevolution Of Cyberinfrastructure Development And Scientific Progress

Many nations have been investing significant funds in cyberinfrastructure for sciences (commonly known as "CI" or "e-science") in the last few decades. The purpose of these investments has been to advance scientific progress in the supported scientific disciplines such as biodiversity and ecological research. However, there is scare research on how these CI investments impact scientific progress. We conducted a longitudinal case study of CI development and scientific progress based on the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program in the United States. We contribute to filling in the research gap by finding CI investments result in impacts both internal and external to the particular discipline of biodiversity. We also find a feedback effect from the discipline to CI development, such that the science and its supporting CI coevolve. The coevolution of CI development and the scientific discipline hinges on the "linking-pin" of data infrastructure. The large-scale data sharing within the discipline and across disciplines, in turn, is contingent on CI governance and how data are structured. The identification of the synergistic coevolution of CI and science enriches coevolutionary theories as well as CI development research. Accordingly, further research and policy changes relating to why and how to fund CI development for sciences, are necessary.