Of Seamlessness and Frictions: Transborder Data Flows of European and US Social Science Data

Open science initiatives are predicated upon managing research data to overcome “data frictions,” or the points of resistance in the movement of data time [12]. This paper explores organizational creation of data frictions to manage the flow of data from one data organization to another. We describe the creation and modification of data frictions between European data organizations and between data organizations in Europe and the USA. We analyze historical documentary data from CESSDA, an umbrella organization representing European data organizations that has served as a platform for development of international data sharing arrangements from the 1960s through today.