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Introduction

Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked (ICON) science aims to enhance synthesis, increase resource efficiency, and create transferable knowledge (Goldman et al., 2021). This article belongs to a collection of commentaries spanning geoscience on the state and future of ICON science.

Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology (P&P) is driven by global collaboration in interdisciplinary and multicultural networks. Integration of diverse expertise in climate physics, oceanography, statistics, biology, ecology, numerical modeling, and many other subjects is important for the comprehensive development, analysis, and interpretation of paleorecords. In comparison to other fields, P&P is particularly multidisciplinary and is often conducted through far-reaching multinational research cooperation. Although ICON practices are usually well established in P&P, they depend on the scale and collaborative effort of research projects and their leaders. In this article, we examine the current state of ICON from three different perspectives.

Global Collaboration, Technology Transfer and Application, Reproducibility, and Data Sharing and Infrastructure

A prevailing strategy to overcome the challenges of interdisciplinarity and Integration is to foster networking among career levels. Improving feedback mechanisms whereby early career researchers (ECRs) add strength and perspective together with the experience of more established scientists may also enhance self-sustainability of ICON principles in the long term. Global coverage of this practice is partly hindered by geopolitical imbalance, emphasizing the need for community efforts to engage in ICON science internationally. Further, the number of ECRs open to travel and work internationally far exceeds the number of opportunities available, but full mobility potential has not yet been achieved, and such opportunities are simply not possible for everyone. Challenges here include limited training investments, funding constraints, political barriers, and most recently, travel and laboratory restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. For some sub-areas of P&P (e.g., modeling and big data analysis), these exchanges can often be carried out remotely, while for others local laws and regulations complicate field work. This presents an opportunity to improve Networked approaches, whereby individuals or groups strategically collect, contribute products, and curate data with the goals of integration and synthesis among the community.

Community, institutional, and personal benefits to embracing an open research culture are clear, but global inequities in terms of infrastructure and investment remain. These inequities limit our community's capacity to fully realize its intellectual and impact potential....

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