Knowledge Decay

Definition

Knowledge Decay examines knowledge decay within the broader domain of how knowledge is captured, connected, verified, reused and translated into action.

Why this matters

Knowledge Decay can materially affect human agency, capability, belonging, livelihoods, culture, trust, resilience and long-term societal outcomes.

Research questions

Under which conditions does knowledge decay improve human and system outcomes, how do effects vary across populations and contexts, and what safeguards prevent dependency, exclusion, distortion or loss of agency?

Hypotheses

A transparent, participatory and human-directed approach to knowledge decay, with explicit safeguards and longitudinal evaluation, will improve retrieval accuracy; provenance completeness; reuse; context retention; decay; decision quality; time-to-action compared with opaque, automation-first or short-term approaches.

Proposed methods

knowledge graph analysis; provenance audit; retrieval testing; organisational ethnography; decay measurement; decision-use studies; literature and policy review; expert and affected-user interviews; reproducibility testing; methods adapted specifically to Knowledge Decay

Stakeholders and beneficiaries

creators; cultural custodians; communities; educators; researchers; publishers; platforms; collecting societies; libraries; archives; museums; regulators; funders