Ethical , Legal and Institutional Dynamics of the e - Sciences

A growing number of e-Sciences projects in the natural and social sciences making extensive use of the Grid and other new high-performance computerbased networks (‘e-infrastructures’) are encountering unanticipated and critical social, institutional, ethical and legal constraints on research and collaboration activities. These constraints entail, for example, the confidentiality, privacy and protection of data relating to research studies; Intellectual Property Rights (IPR); accountability for research activities and outcomes; and the issues of trust and risk in distributed collaborations. Such issues can be as critical as technical innovation to the success of the e-Sciences. These are explored in this paper, which also explains how a new NCeSS node, the Oxford e-Social Science project, is undertaking detailed investigations that seek to provide insights and guidelines to assist practitioners and policy makers across the e-Sciences to understand, take account of, and address these diverse issues. Non-technical Summary An overview is provided of key non-technical challenges faced by those planning, implementing and using modern computer-based digital networks for research in social and natural sciences, and outlines how a new NCeSS node is investigating ways in which those challenges can be addressed. Introduction: Social and Institutional Challenges for the E-Sciences The design and use for research of the Grid and other new high-performance information and communication technologies (ICTs) is substantively ‘reconfiguring access’ (Dutton 1999, 2004) to, and the provision of, data resources in the social, natural and computer sciences. These new advanced einfrastructures (or ‘cyberinfrastructures’) are also reconfiguring what scientists and the public can access and know; how and with whom scientists collaborate; and what computer-based services they use and from whom they obtain them.