Crisis in Science: Is Decentralised Science the Answer?

By Lydia Farnham (CTO)

There exists a myriad of problems in modern science. The traditional academic system creates institutional and disciplinary silos; departments, along with academic journals, prizes, and grants, stay strictly within their subjects, which makes collaboration and interdisciplinary research difficult.

The open science movement aims to change this by making all aspects of scientific research—including publications, data, physical samples, and software—widely and freely accessible. Decentralised Science (DeSci) is an approach to scientific research that uses decentralised technologies to transform traditional science. DeSci can support the open science movement by allowing for greater transparency, enabling people to better understand and trust research results, advancing collaboration, and increasing accessibility.

The Role of Blockchain in DeSci

The blockchains of DeSci can promote open science by providing immutable, decentralised databases for publishing academic papers along with their data and code, ensuring their free and open accessibility for as long as the blockchain exists. For example, a researcher can upload their research to a blockchain platform, where the paper, data, and code are stored permanently. Blockchain technology ensures that once information is added, it cannot be altered or deleted, making the research verifiable and thereby promoting transparency and collaboration. This also tackles reproducibility problems, addressing concerns around the credibility and reproducibility of many research findings by using DeSci tools to verify researchers' data. 

It also tackles other problems associated with traditional publishing, such as speed and ownership. DeSci can address these issues by providing faster publication processes and ensuring researchers retain full copyright of their work. DeScier is an open access journal that allows researchers to publish their work while retaining full copyright; you submit your manuscript, await acceptance and peer review, and upon approval, publish in The DeSci Journal.

Supporting Meta Science

DeSci can also support the creation of a field for meta-science reflections. Meta-science, often referred to as the science of science, is a field of study that systematically investigates the methods, processes, and outcomes of scientific research with the aim of unlocking scientific bottlenecks and generating better quality science. Despite an exponential increase in the number of researchers over the past century, the rate of scientific discovery and technological innovation has not kept pace. And with more funding than ever available, the low rate of innovation is distressing. 

We need reform specifically at early stages of research, where research is higher risk but carries greater chances of outlier discoveries. As Sir Paul Nurse has outlined in his independent review of the science (RDI) landscape in the UK, the UK stands 27th out of 38 OECD nations for its expenditure on R&D, standing well below countries like Germany, the US, and South Korea on its expenditure of GDP into science. According to Nurse, the UK research ecosystem fails to maximise use of the diversity of types of talent that exist, and should apply major ‘end-to-end’ spending commitments to new science and tech talent and research programmes. There is a need to embolden the diversity in organisations carrying out science, including public sector research establishments, research institutes and units, focus on the management of core technological resources and cutting down what has become an ‘overemphasis on reporting bureaucracy’.

Decentralised Grants and Funding

‍DeSci projects are inherently a crucial part of meta-science, but they could also incentivise further meta-research. They could offer grants to bring researchers into the field, aiming to reform how research funding and support are structured at the beginning of academic careers. DeSci projects can use cryptocurrency to create decentralised grant systems, providing funding directly to early career researchers. This approach not only increases the total amount of available research funding but also gives researchers more autonomy in how they conduct their science. Additionally, these decentralised networks allow for more open and collaborative scientific discourse. This could help tackle the low morale among junior academics globally; nearly 98% of early-career researchers at NIH voted to form a union—the biggest federal union to form in more than a decade. DeSci systems are a good way to test as they encourage more rapid iteration than established systems.


Case Studies: ResearchHub and DAOs

‍We can look at the example of ResearchHub: Brian Armstrong and Patrick Joyce believed science should operate more like open-source software, without funds being dependent on citation based metrics. They set up ResearchHub, a platform for scientists to collaborate on research more effectively. It allows anyone to earn crypto rewards for contributing new knowledge to the global scientific community. Users earn ResearchCoin (RSC) for publishing content to ResearchHub, and the amount of RSC received is in proportion to how valuable other members of the community perceive content to be. The platform connects researchers globally, also supporting fundraising for specific scientific projects which the community agrees on. 

ResearchHub and similar projects are using technical solutions to tackle science’s big funding problem, wherein researchers spend as much as 50% of their time looking and applying for funds, and that funding doesn’t always reward the most critical areas of science. We can look to the funding systems of DAOs for inspiration. DAOs are decentralised researcher communities, where researchers can post their research projects as a means to engage with potential investors and secure funding for their projects. Members of DAOs usually have tokens whereby they use a quadratic funding model to also vote on support for projects, meaning less bias and more involvement in final funding decisions. For example VitaDAO, a longevity focused DAO, has funded a cutting-edge research venture leveraging the anti-cancer and pro-longevity effects of high molecular weight hyaluronic acid from naked mole rats to humans, outlier research which would have been unlikely to get traditional funding sources due to its high risk nature.

Reducing Bureaucratic Burden

‍Many researchers simply don’t have the time to do much actual research, given the level of the administrative bureaucracy that they’re subjected to. DeSci can help tackle this bureaucratic burden that is being passed down from funder to institution and from institution to researcher, by allowing researchers to turn to decentralised communities for collaboration and support. This would help in identifying and overcoming systemic barriers to innovation and could lead to more efficient scientific processes.

‍Ultimately, the DeSci movement aims to enhance scientific funding, unleash knowledge from silos, eliminate reliance on intermediaries such as publisher conglomerates, and increase collaboration across the field. Meta-science plays a crucial role in this transformation, challenging entrenched scientific processes and fostering a culture where innovation thrives.