Changing Research Practices in the Digital Information and Communication Environment

Abstract

In the context of the emerging knowledge-based economy, innovation and the capacity of the national innovation system to create and disseminate scientific and scholarly information are increasingly fundamental determinants of national prosperity. In their foundational work on National Innovation Systems, the OECD observed that prosperity in a knowledge economy depends as much, if not more, on the knowledge distribution power of the system than it does on its knowledge production power (OECD 1997, p43). This makes the infrastructure supporting research communication and collaboration, information search and access, and dissemination and publication a key element of the national innovation system. It is essential, therefore, to provide cost-effective access to, and dissemination of scientific and scholarly information in support of research and its economic, social and environmental applications. This study examines evolving research practices, focusing on how practices are changing and what the implications of those changes are for scholarly communication and the future development of the research infrastructure. It outlines a coherent agenda for the evolutionary development of a sustainable research information and scholarly communication infrastructure.