and research institutions worldwide are constantly adding to the stock of knowledge. The information uploaded in the world wide web or shared through social networks is growing exponentially, while smartphones and other connected devices are generating trillions of data ready to be analyzed by ever smarter algorithms. Better knowledge and more information should enable us to solve many of the problems we are facing. The potential for a bright future in the digital age is enormous. However, seen from a liberal and humanitarian perspective, there are also fundamental risks. Connectivity increases interdependence. We concede control over our lives. Our wellbeing is increasingly determined by decisions made by others. This loss of control is further aggravated by our growing ignorance. Our cognitive abilities have long since been unable to keep pace with the growth of knowledge and information. We know less and less about the world we live in—a truth we tend to ignore, because it can be frightening.

How can humankind exploit the potential created by the growth of knowledge and information, while containing the ensuing risks? This is not only a question of governance. People with the best of intentions make mistakes. Legislators for example have to decide about financial system stability, energy reform, genetically modified food or self-learning algorithms. They normally have no special education in the respective field. They cannot but rely on experts. However, experts seldom agree, and advice is often mingled with vested interests. We cannot be sure that decision makers get the best advice possible. However, we can try to increase the likelihood of adequate information. A key factor is decision makers’ access to knowledge infrastructures.

Knowledge infrastructures comprise content, institutions and personal networks. At the content level, they connect past and present scholarly work, research findings and layers of expertise spanning the boundaries between specialized fields of knowledge, organizations as well as professionals and laypersons. Institutionally, they consist of schools, universities, research institutions, think tanks, libraries and various providers of media content. Last but not least, knowledge infrastructures depend on how people as explorers, bearers, transmitters and users of different pieces of knowledge and information are connected. Quality and vitality are essential performance parameters. Quality refers to openness, accessibility, transparency and verifiability of information. Vitality includes the constant adjustment to new issues, new knowledge and new technologies.

It would be naïve to think that the quality and vitality of knowledge infrastructures could be centrally designed. The task is far too complex. Spontaneous order and self-governance are natural constituents of governance architectures. Knowledge infrastructures are the outcome of competition and collaboration between public as well as private for profit and non-profit organizations. This publication provides an excellent example. The three institutions presented in the following pages have been established by private initiative and private money. The same holds true for Innovative Nurture Community (inc.), a newly founded independent network of influencers, which generously sponsored these pages. Together with many other similar initiatives, they are proof of the quality and vitality of knowledge infrastructures in free societies.

The UWC movement grew out of the experiences of two devastating world wars and the belief in the power of education in fostering international understanding and forming ties among future leaders. The Renewable Energy Institute was founded by Masayoshi Son, a leading Japanese entrepreneur, in response to Japan’s nuclear disaster following the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. It has effectively broken the dominance of Japan’s incumbent electricity suppliers as advisors in matters of energy policy. As an independent think tank at the intersection between technology and society, the Berlin-based Stiftung Neue Verantwortung spans boundaries between scientific research, policy makers and civil society. It fills a vital gap in the public discourse pertaining to the regulation of big data and AI.

Democratic governments, too, fulfil important roles. Education, research and research infrastructures rely on public funding. The German Institute for Japanese Studies, which I am heading in Tokyo, is one of ten German social science and humanities institutes abroad funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and organized under the umbrella of the Max Weber Foundation. Although small in scale, the ten institutes represent innovative answers to the need to conduct research in the social sciences and humanities with a regional and comparative focus. Their transnational research networks promote not only German scholarship, but also foster exchanges and mutual understanding across cultures and beyond national interests.

Besides public money, public regulations, too, form another, though often neglected channel through which public authorities can promote the direction of innovation and knowledge accumulation as well as the quality of knowledge infrastructures. The most prominent examples are requirements to test, evaluate and document the environmental and health impact of new products. Similar regulations are needed in the case of big data and AI. The digital transformation, if managed in a responsible way, has the potential to improve the quality and vitality of knowledge infrastructures, thus giving us better reason to feel assured despite our unavoidable ignorance.