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The ways in which ¡°research infrastructures¡± provide ¡°an indispensable foundation for cutting-edge research in Europe¡± are explored in a new book.

Arising from a conference held in Berlin late last year, Facing the Future: European Research Infrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences provides ¡°a comprehensive view of the state of the art of pan-European interdisciplinary research¡±, looking at administrative data; longitudinal research and bio-social research; digital humanities; and digital communication and social media.

Contributors stress the role of the social sciences and humanities in addressing challenges such as ¡°employment, demographic change and ageing populations, migration, poverty, climate change, food and energy security, European cohesion and cultural diversity¡±, and in reviving a sense of ¡°a European cultural heritage¡±. Yet they can do so, argues Peter Farago, director of the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences, only if ¡°durable institutions, technical tools and platforms, and/or services¡­are put into place for supporting and enhancing research¡±.

Such research infrastructures, he goes on, ¡°need to be durable and stable on a long-term basis to avoid losing accumulated benefits¡± yet also highly ¡°adaptab[le] to the changing needs of the scientific community¡±. Typical problems to be overcome include ¡°the tension between open data access and confidentiality; fragmentation, funding and time-frames issues¡±.

A concluding chapter flags up the need for ¡°facilitating research cooperation and interdisciplinarity¡± and ¡°tapping new sources of (big) data¡±. Although ¡°the notion of ¡®one researcher, one project, one dataset¡¯ is gradually being superseded by a culture of sharing, cooperation and re-use of data¡±, argue the authors, ¡°there is still much work to be done¡±. A key factor is the lack of incentives for researchers to ¡°invest time and energy into preparing their data for secondary use. The hard work involved with producing, and also sharing, high-quality data is currently not being appropriately rewarded by journals, universities and funding agencies with professional credit.¡±

matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com