Catastrophic funding cuts in scientific research – could blockchain be the solution?
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We are going through one of the worst economic instabilities and it is about to get worse. With governments struggling to keep the economy afloat, spending cuts are an unfortunate yet understandable reality.
While public spending and private investment have been reduced across several sectors, scientific research has seen quite shocking declines.
In the UK alone, government funding for research and development was cut by almost 50% last year. In Europe, over $100 million in scientific funding has been suspended since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began earlier this year.
In addition to government grants and funding, private investment in scientific projects is also going down significantly. As VCs and angel investors become more rigid and limited, securing investment for scientific research is now significantly challenging.
So how can researchers and projects find effective funding opportunities to support their research in this rather challenging landscape? Blockchain may hold the ultimate answer.
Introducing DeSci centralized science
DeSci is an innovative blockchain use case that establishes a public infrastructure to create, credit, distribute, finance, review and store scientific knowledge transparently and equally. It is a decentralized ecosystem where scientists and researchers are encouraged to share their knowledge and research with a wider audience.
DeSci was established based on the fundamental concept that scientific knowledge should be available and accessible to everyone. DeSci has two distinct functions.
First, it makes the research process transparent and makes the research information publicly available so that everyone can benefit from it. Second, it connects scientists and researchers directly with innovative investors without requiring a centralized intermediary.
Funding has been the biggest challenge for scientific research in the 21st century. Several transformative projects have failed over the past two decades due to insufficient funding or lack of investment.
In 2021, for example, revolutionary research into the use of artificial intelligence in maternal health treatment was shut down in Brazil due to the government withdrawing from the initial funding of $106 million. Similarly, several critical research initiatives on climate change have been canceled in Canada in the past two years.
Blockchain technology has a unique potential to solve this problem by unlocking new streams of investment for such projects and creating a sustainable next-generation ecosystem of decentralized science.
How can DeSci solve the funding crisis
Traditionally, the majority of scientific funding has been obtained from centralized entities, whether in the form of government grants, VC funds or corporate investment. In fact, almost 75% of all scientific research is funded by government funds.
DeSci uses blockchain technology to open up a wide range of diversified funding sources, including DAOs, crowdfunding and square donations.
Using autonomous decentralized applications, researchers can collaborate to fund their projects. They can potentially monetize research rights and contributions through NFTs and add more sustainable value to the wider scientific communities.
Most importantly, DeSci is revolutionizing the crowdfunding concept for scientific research. Crowdfunding has provided significant benefits for startups and new businesses over the years.
However, it has not been fully exploited in science and research, as public knowledge of scientific projects is often limited, and such projects are often too complex to receive the attention of the wider public.
Using mechanisms like The DAO and Square Donations, researchers can match projects with like-minded individuals and grant them governance rights in exchange for their funds and contributions. This creates a fairer and more beneficial ecosystem for crowdfunding.
The decentralized model can support more time- and cost-effective research initiatives. On average, scientists and researchers spend 50% of their time writing proposals and granting applications for funding.
In addition, a large part of the profits from these research projects are accumulated by third-party intermediaries such as publications or distributors. DeSci eliminates these intermediaries, and scientific findings are publicly distributed through scalable tokenomics.
The Obstacles and Limitations of DeSci
On paper, decentralized science is exciting, but several concerns and limitations limit its application and adoption. DeSci suffers from the same problem it tries to fix lack of investors. As the concept is integrated with blockchain technology, its first investors are likely to be those from the crypto industry.
Cryptocurrency investing and trading is the biggest use case of blockchain to date, so most of the investment in any new blockchain project will come from this niche.
This will significantly limit the investment reach of DeSci, as the capitalization of the entire crypto market is lower than that of traditional technology companies such as Apple and Amazon. Therefore, it will be challenging for such projects to obtain enough capital or investments to make a significant impact.
To solve this problem, the decentralized science movement needs large professional players. Some recent DeSci projects have attracted significant investors and affiliates, such as the University of Copenhagen, BreyerCapital and Scheibye-Knudsen Lab.
However, new projects will have to attack several large investors to influence the wider use of decentralized science.
There are also the more obvious ethical challenges. Such projects must be decentralized, but affiliation with or collaboration with large investment companies can destroy the principles of decentralization. Therefore, new projects must be careful when forming partnerships and seeking investment.
Finally, there is also the concern of trust and credibility. With any centralized governing body, DeSci platforms will require transparent self-regulation.
As they have an efficient and credible management model, they can attract sufficient users or professionals.
In conclusion, the DeSci platforms provide an innovative model to solve the global funding crisis for scientific research and facilitate transformative innovation through the equitable distribution of scientific knowledge. However, the challenges of adequate investment and regulation continue to overshadow this new industry.
New iterations of DeSci and more robust frameworks can solve these problems in the future and pave the way for a new generation of science and research.
Dimitry Mihaylov is an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, a contract expert at the UN and chief scientific officer at Farcana.
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