Photo: Shutterstock
Photo: Shutterstock

Friday, we got to know that a large project has been funded by the Research Council of Norway's INFRASTRUKTUR initiative, that aims to build up relevant, up-to-date infrastructure that is accessible to the research community, to various private and public sector user groups, and to the general public.

Peace Science Infrastructure will bring together researchers from PRIO, SIPRI, Uppsala University, and the University of Oslo. The project will be led by Professor Scott Gates (University of Oslo and PRIO). Congratulations to Scott and his dedicated team, who have been planning this project for the past five years.

The project will build upon existing PRIO networks of collaboration and has as its objective to develop new automated tools for data collection from news and social media sources and thereby establish a consistent industry standard infrastructure for collection and management of event data.

This objective will be accomplished through successful work on three scientific goals:

  1. common standards for subnational data;
  2. machine-coding tools; and
  3. a web platform for open dissemination.

The result will be greatly increased accuracy, speed, and cost-saving in data coding and analysis, enabling more nuanced and politically relevant knowledge production.

The 5-year Peace Science Infrastructure project will:

  • Consolidate PRIO as the hub for state-of-the-art event data research;
  • Strengthen collaboration with the university sector (University of Oslo; Uppsala University);
  • Facilitate development of early warning tools for policy and practice;
  • Integrate social and natural sciences;
  • Guarantee peace science infrastructure that is open, transparent, and free.