““Looking at the theme of community over commercialization, if we’re going to be looking at supporting an ecosystem of community owned infrastructure, we recognize that funding for the infrastructure alone is not sufficient. It’s important, but we also need to think about what barriers are keeping communities from adopting en masse or making the switch, and where resourcing can help.”
Posted Sep 29, 2023 by Emmy Tsang & Kaitlin Thaney
Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI) works to increase the investment in and adoption of open infrastructure to further equitable access to and participation in research. We do this by providing actionable, evidence-based tools to institutions and funders of open infrastructure, piloting funding mechanisms to catalyse investment and diversify funding sources for open infrastructure, and offering strategic support in partnership with open infrastructure service providers and funders.
We are thrilled to welcome five new members to our Steering Committee. The IOI Steering Committee represents community leaders, practitioners, and experts who have demonstrated success in influencing and bringing systemic change to communities. This group exists to bring new ideas, strategies, and learnings to the work of IOI from adjacent communities and areas of infrastructure.
Each of the following new members brings a wealth of experience in the open infrastructure and funding spaces, diverse perspectives, and a strong commitment to our mission to improve investment in and adoption of open infrastructure.
Joe Deville, Open Book Collective; Mattering Press; Lancaster University
Robert Karanja, Co-Develop
Louise Marston, Resolution Foundation
Eunice Mercado-Lara, Open & Equitable Program, Open Research Funders Group
Jeff Ubois, Lever for Change
[…]
“We are excited to announce that Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI) has received a generous grant of USD $299,454 from the National Science Foundation to investigate “reasonable costs” for public access to United States federally funded research and scientific data.
The Nelson Memo from the United States Office of Science and Technology Policy incentivizes national adoption of open science practices and aims to ensure all Americans benefit from ready, immediate, and free access to federally funded research. Even when those digital research outputs are free for users, there are significant costs involved with their creation, publication and management. How much are these costs? And who should pay for them?
In a publishing market notorious for extractive practices and perpetuation of inequities in knowledge production and dissemination, public access to research could come at a steep and uneven price to researchers and research institutions. Without clear guardrails, these costs are likely to be passed on to taxpayers by including publishing fees in research project budgets as “allowable expenses”.
This new NSF-sponsored research project from IOI seeks to gather the information needed about publishing costs in order to provide a foundation to address these concerns. Over the course of the next two years, we seek to deepen our understanding of the true cost of “public access” publishing today for prevalent science publication formats (including articles and data), how much research institutions are spending in anticipation of compliance with public access mandates, and how similar or different the approaches and choices are for research institutions of different tiers and demographics. We will identify the range of implementation scenarios arising in research institutions today while investigating and reporting on any disparities or challenges we find. This project is an opportunity to provide actionable research outputs, consistent with IOI’s focus on delivering tools that institutions, funders, and publishers can use to inform their policies, budget allocations, and future planning….”
Kaitlin Thaney argues the current momentum building for “no pays” academic publishing models and establishing the “reasonable costs” of publication, present opportunities to rebalance the inequities, costs, and power dynamics initially bred by the push towards Open Access “at any cost” over the past two decades.
“…Through this pilot Fund, IOI intends to:
Partner with at least (3) networks, focusing on networks with a strong existing service relationship to a set of communities or institutions, a public commitment to open research principles, and a specific opportunity for using funds to develop open infrastructure adoption among members
Raise $5-7M USD to support these network collaborations for 3-5 years, providing direct funding and strategic support to enable the adoption of open infrastructure for those networks and their members, with a focus on infrastructures enabling immediate and equitable open access to data and content.
Create a mechanism to expand the pool of funders for open infrastructure, including calling for commercial service providers and others who derive significant value from the open ecosystem to reinvest in the open systems from which they profit….”
“We are revamping our communications and engagement strategy, and as a result, this is the last ‘What We are Working On’ blog post we are publishing for now. Stay tuned for new and exciting knowledge offerings from the IOI team! In the meantime, you can sign up to our newsletter to receive the latest updates from IOI….”
“We are excited to hear that you plan to apply to the Open Infrastructure Fund! Below, we provide some guiding questions to help you think through and prepare for an application. What is the problem/need that the proposed work addresses? A main goal of the Open Infrastructure Fund is to address real needs in the community. In the proposal, please share your understanding of the needs of your community or the issue at hand – who is affected, what caused the issue, what is the evidence for the need, and what is the impact of not addressing it? How does the proposal align with the goals of the Fund? At IOI, we believe that in order for access and participation in research and scholarship to be equitable and inclusive, the tools that underpin them should be similarly designed. Therefore, in your application, please tell us how your proposed work will strengthen the resilience and sustainability of open infrastructure(s) and how this work would further equity in research. Consider the groups that being excluded or marginalized by the the ways that research and scholarly communication infrastructures are currently developed, maintained, implemented, or governed. Show how your proposal would seek to meaningfully and concretely advance their access and participation in research and scholarship. How is the proposed work open? Illustrate how your plan to build your project with a community of users, supporters, collaborators, and others impacted by the work….”
“The office hours sessions for the Open Infrastructure fund have kicked off! This Monday, we held the first of three sessions that are aimed at giving more information to potential applicants of the Open Infrastructure Fund on crucial eligibility criteria and factors to consider before putting in a proposal. The next office hour session will be on Monday, June 26, 2023, at 09:00 UTC. You can register for the session at this link. The fund aims to strengthen sustainability and resilience and increase the adoption of open infrastructure that underpins research and knowledge creation. Read our English and Spanish blog posts for more information on the application process. The application deadline is July 31, 2023.
Last week, we facilitated our workshop on exploring how public-private partnerships can contribute to the sustainability of research in Africa. The workshop, which took place in Somerset West, South Africa, was a success and brought together a diverse set of stakeholders from across the continent in both public and private sectors. We will share a blog post with the key takeaways from the discussion next week….”
“Previously, we shared a draft report on our preliminary investigation into defining open scholarly infrastructure and invited your comments and questions. We now share the final version of this report. IOI strives to build on the efforts of others working to improve funding and resourcing for the open infrastructure on which scholarly research relies. As an organization, one of our aims is to enhance our shared understanding of infrastructure in scientific research and scholarly communication. We believe that a more profound understanding of this area will have substantial consequences for how organizations providing research and scholarship services are supported and engaged with. This report serves as an initial stage in a continuous process that the organization intends to refine and develop over time. In this preliminary investigation, we first examined a body of literature that includes works across the fields of anthropology, scholarly communications, international development studies, science and technology studies, and infrastructure studies. We synthesized the characteristics and dimensions defined in the literature we reviewed to produce the initial draft, which we then opened for public comments for two weeks. Our research team then synthesized the feedback from the community to create the final report that we hope gives more divergent perspectives that have enriched our understanding of open infrastructure in research and scholarship….”
“We are now accepting proposal submissions for the IOI Open Infrastructure Fund. The fund aims to strengthen sustainability, resilience and increase the adoption of open infrastructure that underpins research and knowledge creation. 60% of the total fund amount of $130,000 has been ring-fenced for initiatives from Low and Middle-Income Economies (LMIEs). Read our English and Spanish blog posts for more application process and eligibility information. We also have set up office hours (bilingual) in June and July to provide a dedicated space for the IOI team to field any questions about the fund. The application deadline is July 31, 2023.
We are now less than a week away from our workshop in South Africa that will focus on how Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) can enhance the sustainability of research infrastructure in Africa. The workshop will happen on June 12, 2023, adjacent to the 2023 Open Repositories Conference in Somerset, South Africa….”
“The fund aims to strengthen sustainability and resilience and increase the adoption of open infrastructure that underpins research and knowledge creation. Funding of 5,000-25,000 USD will be given to selected projects that focus on one of the following areas: capacity building, strengthening community governance, and critical shared infrastructure. Find out more about the Fund on this page. During the session, our Engagement Lead Emmy Tsang will share more about the objective, scope, and application and evaluation processes of the Fund. We’ll also answer your questions about the Fund….”
“…We welcome Sarah Lang and Daechan Kim to the team! As our Business Development and Partnerships Lead, Sarah will be working closely with our Executive Director Kaitlin Thaney to build support for our first fund, set to launch in 2024, as well as to further the development of our fundraising and business partnership strategy. We are also excited to have Daechan, a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, join the team over the summer to research governance models for the open science cloud infrastructure project (see below). Additionally, Jerry Sellanga transitions to the new role of Engagement Coordinator, Networks, and starts full time this month.
Our Research Team is starting interviews with project partners for the open science cloud infrastructure in Latin America and Africa project. In this project, we will be conducting initial research in governance activities and co-designing and piloting an early-stage governance and sustainability plan. The Engagement team is preparing for our upcoming workshop on building sustainable research infrastructure in Africa through exploring public-private partnerships, taking place alongside Open Repositories 2023 in June, in Somerset West, South Africa….”
English translation: “Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI) is excited to announce our upcoming funding call for the Open Infrastructure Fund, which marks the next step in our Collective Funding Pilot. This call will provide funding to projects that support the development of open research infrastructure services, with the aim of strengthening sustainability and resilience and increasing the adoption of open infrastructure that underpins research and knowledge creation. Open Infrastructure Fund (pilot) at a glance:
Areas: capacity building, strengthening community governance, critical shared infrastructure
Where you are based: anywhere in the world; 60% of these funds are reserved for individuals and organizations in Low and Middle Income Economies (LMIEs) and/or services that are widely adopted by communities in LMIEs.
Level of funding: 5,000-25,000 USD
Duration of award: projects of any duration up to 2 years, starting between November 1 and December 31, 2023.
Deadline for applications: July 31, 2023…”
“Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI) is excited to announce our upcoming funding call for the Open Infrastructure Fund, which marks the next step in our Collective Funding Pilot. This call will provide funding to projects that support the development of open research infrastructure services, with the aim of strengthening sustainability and resilience and increasing the adoption of open infrastructure that underpins research and knowledge creation. Open Infrastructure Fund (pilot) at a glance:
Areas: capacity building, strengthening community governance, critical shared infrastructure
Where you are based: anywhere in the world; 60% of these funds are reserved for individuals and organizations in Low and Middle Income Economies (LMIEs) and/or services that are widely adopted by communities in LMIEs.
Level of funding: 5,000-25,000 USD
Duration of award: projects of any duration up to 2 years, starting between November 1 and December 31, 2023.
Deadline for applications: July 31, 2023…”
“CS&S is proud to cross-post the announcement that Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI) has received a generous grant of USD 1 million from the Mellon Foundation to catalyze investment in and adoption of open infrastructure in research. This grant will support the further development and productization of the Catalog of Open Infrastructure Services (COIs) and the testing of critical models and strategies to widen the pool of investors in open infrastructure….”