Paper short abstract:

Introducing a Database of IPCC Authors and Delegates and discussing its possible uses

Paper long abstract:

The IPCC is a fascinating institutional puzzle. Despite its gruelling mission (maintaining a rolling dialogue on climate change between the different disciplines and scientific approaches and between the academic community and world governments), the IPCC have prospered over thirty years and five assessment cycles.

In its three decades, the organisation has thrived quantitatively and qualitatively: its reports have grown from the 1222 to 5021 pages; its authors increased from 586 to 2731; and its national delegates from 737 to 3382; all while the Panel was strengthening its authority as a bridge between scientific research and diplomatic negotiations (for which it was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace).

Most amazingly, such expansion has not been accompanied by an "institutional hardening" of the organisation. The IPCC remains "network organisation" with no permanent organs and no lifelong employees (apart from a relatively small Secretariat). Rather than on a stable bureaucracy, the IPCC has based its success on a vast and complex system of practices and procedures that it progressively developed to select its members and coordinate their contributions.

To shed lights on these interactions and the coordination patterns that they produced, we build a database containing the names, the roles and the national and institutional affiliations of all the individuals that have contributed to the IPCC. In this contribution we will present such database and discuss the possible lines of investigation that it could enable.