DeSciCommons.org

Together, we will create the DeSci Commons: the ultimate game-changer in the world of scientific research! 🚀 Prepare to witness the dawn of a new era where collaboration, transparency, and reproducibility take center stage. 🌟 Say goodbye to the age of hidden data, irreproducible studies, and skewed incentives. DeSci Commons will elaborate guidelines to align DeSci projects to help fix science once and for all, empowering researchers to boldly push the frontiers of knowledge together. 🧪🔬 The DeSci community and its aligned science funders are committed to upholding these values and principles of the DeSci Commons, creating an ecosystem that fosters cooperation, innovation, and global impact. 🌍 #DeSciCommons #wewillfixsciencethistime

The DeSci revolution is different from all earlier science revolutions because this time, we can decide on who gets the money and how science is being done.

This grant will be used to kickstart DeSciCommons.org.

Background

Science is broken on so many levels; you name it ... Many science revolutions have failed in the past. See our presentation at Blockchain meets Bio

Why is the DeSci revolution so special?

The DeSci revolution is special because no other revolution beforehand had the power to combine research money with requirements for how science should be done.

What can DeSci do differently?

The DeSci revolution can be different - if done right. We have to stop discussing how "open science" DeSci is or should be. Instead, we will develop together concrete guiding principles for DeSci projects that will make sense for all kinds of research(ers), be it in traditional institutes, applied science, or kitchen scientists. We agree that publishers, patents, old-fashioned institutions, etc., are not inherently bad; it is just the incentives that are (very) wrongly aligned… Furthermore, science funders like gitcoin and research-DAOs are looking for guidelines on how to best support public goods science projects to get the most out of their resources. A community effort to straighten these things out would be a great addition to the young community.

We can create the future of science as it should be

Science will become great and fun again

• We will free scientists from overhead

• Make results true again

• Make applied science trusted and investable again - because research results are ... just true

• Give serendipity the space that it needs to produce really groundbreaking innovations

  

We will start the DeSciCommons.org

This grant will be used to kickstart the DeSci Commons process.

For this, we will:

• Set up a call for collaboration on desciommons.org during this dawn of #descisummer.

• By the summer of 2023 (#descisummer), we will start the process with all contributors.

• By next year, we will come up with the first version of the guidelines.

• They will become a signaling brand for really good science - “the blue Twitter sticker for great science”. (Mikey from dbdao/desci-NY).

Why now?

Now is the right time to start this process. The intersection of science and blockchain has matured: and millions of research dollars are already routed through research DAOs; what would it do good if this money is being spent on old “centralized science”? “Serious” people are moving into DeSci, and institutes become aware. But the community is still young enough to come up with the right principles and best practices and to grow the small DeSci flower right.

For this, we need

🤜🏻 the DeSci community: to contribute to the guidelines

🤜🏻 for scientists: that understand desci to early join the process - for lawyers who know blockchain & IP - for people who have experience in governance and guidelines ...

🤜🏻 adoption: spread the word, DAOs / Web3 Science funders and DeScientists adhering to these guidelines

Example guidelines

Example guidelines - how they might look like, we don´t know yet. They might be more like Creative Commons.

They might be called decentralized science commons or short DS. Completely open research projects might be called DS-PG (public goods)—some with non-monopolizing applied research intellectual property DS-IP. Researchers that might have to do science in traditional institutes but want to do desci might follow the DS-CS (centralized science) route; with no IP, they´ll be funded through DS-PG-CS. You get the idea!

A long-lasting impact

DeScicommons.org should become a neutral guarding organization & technical foundry for education, organization, branding & marketing Descicommons.org will strive for continuous iterations of the guidelines. Maybe it could even be the lobbying institution for DeSci. We will spend all funds on reaching these goals and invite others to participate. And the best: After reaching its goal of fixing science, DeSciCommons will self-destruct :)

Why you can trust us

This project is being created, it has no track record, but the people behind it have!

Behind DeScicommons.org are for now (it will be dispersed into a community process as soon as possible) :

Sarah Hamburg, PhD (University College London)

Dr. Martin Etzrodt (akasha.world)

PD Dr. Sönke Bartling (Blockchain For Science).

You can trust us because all of us show a long history of caring for science, open science, while having a significant track history in traditional centralized science. Sarah is an early trailblazer for what DeSci can do better. Martin organized workshops on Blockchain & Science early on and is greatly connected in the DeSci world. Soenke came up with Blockchain For Science while there was no Twitter hit on “blockchain” & “science”. Soenke run the first two Blockchain For Science conferences in 2018 & 2019. He edited a book on opening science which became SprinterNatures most downloaded Open Access book.