Escience

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Scientific research that relies on large-scale computing, networked infrastructure and shared digital data to solve complex problems
2. A field of study in which researchers use powerful computer networks and vast digital datasets to carry out investigations across disciplines
3. Data-driven investigation conducted through distributed computing and online collaboration tools, especially in fields generating very large datasets

Etymology: John Taylor, then director-general of the UK's research councils, is generally credited with coining "e-science" to name a government funding programme for research carried out over computer networks. The prefix was a deliberate borrowing from "e-", short for "electronic", which had already spread through English in terms like e-mail and e-commerce. Attaching it to science signalled that the work lived on the network. The idea is that modern research increasingly depends on huge shared datasets and collaborators scattered across the world, so the computing infrastructure becomes part of the experiment itself. The second half of the compound comes from Latin "scientia", meaning knowledge, so the whole term amounts to knowledge-making done electronically.