The launch of the Global Risks Report from the World Economic Forum outlined the importance of cooperation when trying to solve problems that are inherently global in nature. The report warned however that the willingness for such cooperation was dwindling as states entered a dog-eat-dog mindset.
A new report from UK academia suggests the key to global problems is not just global cooperation per se, but specifically open data. The report, which was penned by the Open Research Data Task Force, which itself is a group of senior professors from higher education, highlights how open research data significantly increases the likelihood that science will be able to infer patterns and identify solutions in complex problems.