Scientific site over year favoured this when shorn of international networks (10)

'international networks' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both man-made objects as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?

'scientific site over year favoured this when shorn' is the wordplay.
'scientific site' becomes 'lab' (I've seen this in another clue).
'over' says to put letters next to each other.
'year' becomes 'yr' (abbreviation).
'favoured' becomes 'in' (I've seen this in other clues).
'this when shorn' becomes 'ths' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'lab'+'yr'+'in'+'ths'='LABYRINTHS'

'of' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?