ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
Welcome, from the GKC team. The Workshop on Governing Knowledge Commons, or GKC for short, organizes and publishes research on knowledge commons governance, intending to develop a systematic, empirical basis for understanding the virtues, drawbacks, and mechanics of institutions for sharing knowledge, information, and data.
The scope of knowledge commons in practice is vast, which means that the scope of knowledge commons research is equally broad.
Knowledge commons governance is used widely across sectors, from science, medicine, and health, to climate and the environment, to computing systems of all sorts, to arts and culture throughout history, to research and education, to community development, and to industry and agriculture.
ABOUT KNOWLEDGE COMMONS
Knowledge covers all manner of scientific, medical, and technical data in “science commons” and “innovation” commons; computer programs and artificial intelligence systems and related “data commons”; “cultural” commons and “cultural heritage” commons in music, film, literature, and other arts as well as “GLAM” institutions (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums); “infrastructure” commons such as the Internet and telecommunications networks; and knowledge-, information-, and data-dimensions of “material” commons such as shared environmental resources (water, forests, fisheries, pasturage), cities (“urban commons”); institutions conventionally understood as legal abstractions (companies and corporations and/as commons); economic phenomena (markets and/as commons); and/or social practices dominated by individual rather than shared interests (privacy, confidentiality, and security).
Knowledge commons means governance of shared knowledge, information, and data resources in some community or collective setting. That material is typically shared either by design or by circumstance or both. Its shared character both creates and solves social dilemmas. (The so-called “tragedy of the commons” is one example of a possible social dilemma, but it is far from the only possibility.) Society typically looks to governance systems to help us address those dilemmas. For knowledge, information, and data, many governance systems, including intellectual property law and privacy law, usually recommend governance anchored in core concepts of exclusivity and ownership. For much of the same material, knowledge commons usually recommends governance anchored in core concepts of collaboration and community.
Neither style of governance and related law and public policy is inherently better. Both, in context, can be effective in addressing social dilemmas and advancing social goals. Knowing when and knowing how require empirical research as well as theory and ideology.
ABOUT KNOWLEDGE COMMONS RESEARCH
The GKC framework, first published in 2010, underlies the entire GKC research project. The GKC borrows stylistically from Elinor Ostrom’s IAD (Institutional Analysis and Development) framework and aligns with Ostrom’s interest in comparative institutional analysis. But GKC-based research stands on its own conceptual and methodological foundations; it is not simply “IAD, or Ostrom’s Governing the Commons, but for knowledge and information.” Among other things, the GKC framework steers researchers and research away from “tragic commons” framings that tend to dominate analysis of material resource commons and toward a broad and pluralistic understanding of the social dilemmas framed by shared intangible resources.
Knowledge, information, and data governance pose opportunities and social dilemmas that are not always evident in the world of biophysical resources. Knowledge resources may not be Common Pool Resources as Ostrom developed that concept. A “tragedy of the commons” may not be the key threat to productive development or distribution of knowledge. Ostrom’s “design principles” for managing a commons are neither natural starting points nor natural conclusions with respect to shared knowledge resources.
Given GKC’s pluralistic starting points, the scope of GKC research is as broad as knowledge commons themselves. “Knowledge commons” are not (only) modest exceptions or modes of collective resistance to dominant property paradigms; they are not (only) sustainable in small groups. The GKC program treats knowledge commons as posing fundamentally empirical questions: How are knowledge, information, and other shared intellectual resources governed? What resources matter? What challenges and opportunities do they present? How do knowledge commons governance institutions begin? Thrive? Change? Fail? What roles do formal legal systems play in reinforcing or undermining knowledge commons governance? What are the strengths and weaknesses of informal norms in advancing knowledge commons governance? What are the roles of the state and of technology in defining conditions under which knowledge commons might flourish – or not?
Elinor Ostrom was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009 for her record in institutional economics. Among other things, she demonstrated convincingly and empirically that the so-called “tragedy of the commons” was neither a normal nor natural result of sharing resources. Commons, as a form of collective action, could provide a sustainable and successful alternative to governing resources as private property. We take Ostrom in part as an inspiration and in part as a starting point, rather than as a source of GKC’s presumptive scope.
GETTING STARTED: THE GKC FRAMEWORK
The GKC framework is available to and can be used by researchers in many fields and disciplines: information science and informatics; socio-technical systems; economics; political science; international relations; public policy and public administration; law, including not only intellectual property law but also a wide range of law-related fields, including law and technology and law and economics; history; computer science and computer engineering; and the history and philosophy of science.
Here are excellent starting points for understanding the GKC research framework, for adapting the rhetoric, syntax, and practices of GKC research to the foundational methods of various disciplines, and for getting started on GKC-themed research:
- A brief description of knowledge commons and knowledge commons governance.
- A brief explanation of the Governing Knowledge Commons research framework.
Last updated: June 2026
