Tool: Our World In Data
"All free: open access and open source"
How about a treasure trove of open access and open sourced1 data as a potential reference for research on a wide variety of global topics? https://ourworldindata.org/
From their “About” page:
Our World in Data is a collaborative effort between researchers at the University of Oxford, who are the scientific editors of the website content; and the non-profit organization Global Change Data Lab (GCDL), who publishes and maintains the website and the data tools that make our work possible.
GCDL is a registered charity in England and Wales (Charity Number 1186433) and our work is made possible with the donations of individuals and organizations that have made contributions to support our project.
Aside from a wide range of data-driven visualizations for anyone to browse, they also have a mailing list that you can subscribe to so that they update you on new articles.
For example, its page on critical minerals shows the different minerals’ roles and where their production and booked reserves are located globally. I note that subtleties are omitted - such as laterite vs sulfide ores hosting Nickel. Such subtleties make a big difference in the energy intensity of the Nickel production and the associated emissions (for context, see e.g. Canada Nickel2). An example screenshot, taken on September 17, 2024:
Disclaimer
I have no insights in the data quality, nor have I checked the quality of data sources.
“Our visualizations, data, and articles are free and open-source under the CC-BY License”, Source: FAQ page, accessed September 17, 2024.
At the time of writing this post I have four paywalled articles on them: article 1 (Jan ‘24), article 2 (Mar ‘24), article 3 (Jun ‘24), article 4 (Sep ‘24), but maybe check the company presentation on their website for a quick overview if you like. This is no investment advice, do your own due diligence.