Amelia Acker: Platform Power and Data Integration Services in Scientific Infrastructure

This talk examines how commercial cloud services and data integration platforms are shaping scientific knowledge infrastructure and institutional approaches to digital preservation and archival access. Drawing on findings from two collaborative research projects—a decadal analysis of data management plans from NSF funded scientists and the Palantir Files, a public interest archive documenting the firm's data integration services—I explore how platforms are transforming traditional roles of information institutions in providing access to data. The presentation investigates three key developments: the increasing adoption of commercial cloud services (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud) for storage in scientific data management, the rise of data integration platforms in research environments (GitHub and Figshare), and the implications for institutional autonomy in providing access to archives and publicly funded science. By examining the adoption of platform services in research data management and digital preservation, this work identifies key tensions between open access and commercial platform control. The conclusion will explore counter-archiving projects and institutional strategies that challenge platform dominance while reimagining archival access in a time of networked science.