The role of research data in science diplomacy has grown increasingly significant in recent years. However, little research has been conducted on the diplomatic negotiations behind the establishment of global infrastructures for scientific data sharing and circulation. This study combines quantitative methods from social network analysis and text analysis to examine the evolution of institutional relationships between scientific databases over the past decades and their potential influence on co-authorship networks in scientific publications.

We show that the database network, created by using the Registry of Research Repositories (RE3) can be used to identify infrastructural maintenance networks showing clusters of more central nations and geopolitical imbalances. Starting from this analysis, one of us (CK) jointly investigated the interrelations between the database network and the co-authorship network in two broad research domains (High-Energy Physics and Astronomy and Astrophysics) applying Correlation tests and Markov Chain analyses. This analysis reveals significant interconnections between the database network and co-authorship patterns, suggesting that database infrastructures influence collaborative dynamics in scientific research. Furthermore, employing Large Language Models (LLMs) to extract metadata on databases and institutions from publications, enabled a replication of the tests with additional data layers. We argue that the involvement of government entities in establishing database infrastructures creates latent state-driven dynamics that shape the organization of scientific research and its co-authorship structures. This research highlights how infrastructural networks for data sharing contribute to emergent concentration gradients, ultimately influencing the scientific process.

Carringtone Kinyanjui

For the Soviet bloc, the 1955 Geneva Summit marked a pivotal moment in opening East-West collaboration. Following years of intentional isolation, formal cooperation emerged across the Iron Curtain, launching major international scientific programs that emphasized global research and data sharing, such as International Geophysical Year, International Biological Programme and International Hydrological Decade. Shaped by shifting political and ideological imperatives in the Soviet policy, the structure of these systems and databases evolved in the Soviet bloc: from tightly controlled data sharing in the late 1950s, to drawing on models for COMECON integration and unified policies in the 1960s and 1970s, and finally to embracing global cooperation principles under perestroika. This panel will examine three examples of data exchange structures—the IGY, IBP, and INIS systems—also focusing on the technologies and tangible aspects of information sharing.

In 1958, the World Health Organization (WHO) published an official history book reflecting on its first ten years. The book included a global map showing how epidemiological data were circulated worldwide through four service stations in Geneva, Washington D.C., Alexandria, and Singapore. As expected in a publication of this kind, the map presented a narrative of global epidemiological data exchange as an apolitical international endeavour driven by a collective duty to combat epidemics. However, this effort was far from apolitical, and neither were the institutions created for this purpose, despite their portrayal as natural components of global surveillance.
This presentation explores the political dynamics shaping the institution of global epidemiological data exchange, focusing on the League of Nations Health Organisation’s Eastern Bureau, established in 1925, which later became the Singapore service station under the WHO. It examines the inter-imperial politics in the region designated as the ‘Far East’ highlighting the complexities introduced by Japan—the only non-white empire—and China, which was internationally seen as a reservoir of epidemics but domestically sought international status through modern public health initiatives.
By foregrounding the role of Japan and China, this presentation draws attention to the complex layers of regional dynamics that shaped an ostensibly neutral international public health infrastructure and shows how locally situated negotiations and regional politics informed the development of institutions within the global health data exchange system.