Research scientists from all countries have always interacted with each other closely. But in recent decades, a new type of internationalism has begun to evolve, in which scientists from all over the world work together on very large projects concerning the planet.

An example is research on global change. A number of scientists have come to believe that human activities, such as the use of fossil fuels and deforestation of tropical rain forests, may be altering the earth's climate. To test that hypothesis, a huge amount of meteorological data must be collected from around the world, and no single institution can possibly obtain and analyze it all.

A major effort to organize research on important, worldwide scientific questions such as climate change was begun in the early 1980s. Largely through the efforts of scientists from two...