Global and national science systems: synergies and tensions

Since the advent of the Internet global convergence and integration have been especially pronounced in relation to knowledge, where relations and flows are facilitated by networked communications. A fast-growing global science system has emerged, exhibiting the classical network properties of open entry and rapid expansion and intensification. In turn this has stimulated the growth of national science systems. Worldwide science has evolved as a dual global/national structure, with overlap between the autonomous globally networked system and the nationally normed, organised and funded science systems. The chapter argues for a multi-scalar approach to the analysis of science and reflects on the literature’s insights into global science including the factors shaping associations between scientists beyond the ‘national container’. The global and national science systems are both heterogenous and synergistic, with ongoing potential for mutual production and episodic tensions, and a zone of multiple objects (knowledge, people, protocols) between them.