From Clio Infrastructure
CLIO-INFRA adresses the topic of global inequality, the increasing divergence between rich and poor countries, which is one of most pressing concerns of our time.
To analyze patterns of long-term economic performance global datasets are of crucial importance. To create these datasets, economic and social historians must come together, to gather and share knowledge on the most relevant indicators of economic performance and its causes. Their data need to be pooled and sharing protocols have to be set.The data will have to standardized, harmonized and preserved for future use. New indicators to study inequality will have to be developed.
This requires a large-scale effort to organize new forms of global scholarly cooperation. CLIO-INFRA will supply the necessary infrastructure for this work. It will integrate and standardize data and make them available for a wide scholarly community. The long term aim of the project – as developed by the International Economic History Association – is to change the 'rules of the academic game' in such a way that more efficient ways of cooperation are being made possible and the exchange of data is facilitated. These new rules – such as the Data Availability Policy - are institutional adaptations in response to the greater possibilities for cooperation and exchange made possible by modern e-technology such as the internet. This will also create new links between social science historians and social scientists.
This website offers information about the datasets, the participating organizations and the collaboratories involved.
Click here for a schematic overview of the project structure.
