Rethinking the fundamentals of international scientific cooperation in the early twenty-first century

The reach of the Internet and the power of digital technology together have created a challenge to traditional concepts of international scientific cooperation. To take advantage of the unprecedented opportunities to transform international scientific collaboration, we need to rethink our commitment to international science as derivative of national decisions, and wean ourselves away from considering the global scientific enterprise as the “international dimensions” of domestic research and education. Without this shift, traditional international scientific cooperation will lead us into expensive investments that may become obsolete, even counterproductive, as the development of computers and communications transforms international research and education into the global scientific enterprise. The paper identifies important real changes in the world, issues arising from these changes for international scientific cooperation, and possible actions to address these issues. One focus of the paper is on the “new” field of bioinformatics, the use of computers to analyze genes and proteins