A restart of libscie.org and a warning for ResearchEquals

It's been seven years since starting Liberate Science out of sheer necessity. Much has happened since then and I am grateful to all who participated along the way in all kinds of capacities. Today, it is time to let go of the old content on this blog and focus on the future. The old blog posts remain available through Rogue Scholar.

The next year will be decisive for the company and its main project, ResearchEquals.

ResearchEquals was awarded an honorary prize last year but no financial support materialized as a result. There are five institutions who have dared commit a total of €15k/year since launching in 2022, which covers technical costs. The time to provide support, maintain the service, and further develop remains volunteer work. But even the €15k/year is subject to yearly renewal discussions and is not stable – based on initial conversations it will be less in 2027.

As such there is no clear pathway to sustainability for ResearchEquals right now.

This is not for a lack of trying to find a pathway to sustainability. I've tried to build concrete services, but those end up in procurement divisions who care little about open research. I've sought supporting memberships, which do not scale to the degree to operate a service. I also recognize that I play a part in not having been convincing enough in articulating the value, yet I cannot take full responsibility for the outcome either. This is not a big operation, and while there is much I could do better, I also need help from those who want this to succeed.

Like many other repositories, services, and platforms, it appears organizations want open infrastructure but not enough to pay for it. Even if something is a common good and it is understood we cannot all freeride, many organizations attempt to freeride nonetheless. Nonetheless, they will say they're willing to pay and then not do it. This is a dilemma that extends beyond ResearchEquals. I understand me saying there is currently no path to sustainability may keep organizations from investing, but I also want to be explicit that this two-faced nature is frustrating and demotivating.

So I am sending out a warning signal for the second time: If you want ResearchEquals to persist, it will take more support. Concretely, the support will need to come in the next 9 months.

The Open Science Framework sprung its closure on us recently, and I want to be more transparent about what is going on than that.

If ResearchEquals needs to be shut down in the future, that is the result of a chain of decisions that stretch back years and is collectively carried. It is unreasonable to expect any one individual to take that sole responsibility, and it's taken me a while to come to that realization. The decision processes are disproportional for the amounts being discussed, and I've been strung along for small amounts of financial support that never ended up materializing. This also means my energy to seek out further support is beyond running on fumes.

With so much money slushing around in the Open Research landscape these days, it is clear decisions are being made to move money to certain places. There is a brief window of opportunity to still include ResearchEquals in those decisions, but that window is rapidly closing. And also consider what other services need that, because I know ResearchEquals is not the only service struggling right now.