An increasing number of scientists and entrepreneurs are using blockchain tools, including smart contracts and tokens, in efforts to make modern science better. Together, this work has come to be called the decentralized science movement, or DeSci.
What is decentralized science (DeSci)?
Still emerging, decentralized science (DeSci) sits where two wider trends meet: 1) work inside the scientific community to alter how research is financed and knowledge is shared, and 2) work inside the crypto-oriented movement to move ownership and value away from industry middlemen. But what does DeSci actually involve?
I’m a neuroscientist and cofounder of a startup that uses the blockchain to give wearables users complete ownership and control of their biometric data, including brain data. I recently wrote a brief letter in the journal Nature urging scientists in every field to take part in DeSci. As the movement expands, the need for open public debate grows too. With that in mind, I’ve assembled an introductory guide covering how DeSci began, what its core traits are, what the main disputes and open questions inside the movement are, and where the biggest opportunities and obstacles are located.
DeSci drivers
The DeSci movement seeks to improve scientific funding; free knowledge from silos; reduce dependence on profit-driven intermediaries such as publisher conglomerates; and boost collaboration across the field.
Funding is an especially severe problem for scientists, who can devote as much as half their time to grant writing. Winning funding is strongly linked to measures like the h-index, which measures the influence of a scientist’s published work. The pressure that follows to “publish or perish” encourages novel research over work that is important but less likely to make headlines. In the end, weak and inconsistent funding not only lowers the amount of science being conducted, but also skews the projects scientists select, adding to problems such as the replication crisis.
Access to information is another widely criticized issue. Even though science is the very model of a global public good, much scientific knowledge remains locked behind journal paywalls and within private databases. Expanding access to all kinds of data is the central aim of the Open Science movement, which appeared more than a decade ago.
Open Science efforts have produced wide-ranging impacts, including requirements from the National Institutes of Health and other funders to publish open-access results. Yet whether science has actually improved because of this is disputed. For instance, journals answered these requirements with pay-to-publish business models. So now, rather than paying to read other people’s studies, publicly funded scientists pay to publish their own work. (Nature charges over $11,000 per paper.) Some academics have said open access mandates are increasingly putting power in the hands of large publishers.
Where DeSci comes in
Although it aligns with Open Science in wanting science to be more accessible, DeSci is not Open Science 2.0. It is a distinct movement with diverse and changing aims. What chiefly sets DeSci apart from other efforts to redesign our research system is its use of blockchain tools. This resembles how blockchain is shaking up other industries, where web2 models of centralized ownership are being challenged by web3 models of decentralized, shared ownership.
Science-related blockchain projects go back to 2015, but they did not become a larger movement until 2021, after a surge of new projects. These included the first Open Science NFT selling for 13 ETH; the later rise of research groups auctioning NFTs; the expansion of several science-focused decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs); and a DeSci panel at last October’s community-run blockchain event, LisCon.
The DeSci scene that emerged is a blend of loosely linked DAOs. Some concentrate on particular parts of scientific research, including funding, peer review, access, incentives, and speed. Others are centered on specific disciplines. Biotech is leading, with DAOs such as Molecule, VitaDAO, PsyDAO, Phage Directory, LabDAO and SCINET. Environmental science DAOs are also picking up momentum. Outside DAOs, individual scientists are testing blockchain by issuing their own research tokens.
Overall, DeSci projects stretch from purely theoretical concepts and small technical trials to more established actors financing university research and launching several DAOs of their own.
How DeSci actually uses blockchain tools
Smart contracts: While scientists carry out peer review without pay, the academic publishing industry makes huge profits from the process by serving as an intermediary. Ants Review has demonstrated how smart contracts could instead connect authors and peer reviewers directly, with reviewers being paid in tokens for their reviews.
Incentivized communities: Tokens/NFTs could be employed to encourage scientific communities to share, review, and organize different kinds of information into resources such as “smart manuscripts” (which connect open-source data and protocols) and article collections. This could support new forms of knowledge-sharing and fast publishing and review, akin to a curated and managed version of #AcademicTwitter. Such communities could be especially useful in improving the quality and usefulness of preprints (manuscripts released before peer review). Preprints are crucial for rapid science, as scientists’ reliance on them during the COVID pandemic showed.
Combat censorship: Allegations of political interference in science have been directed at multiple US administrations. The “permaweb” features of blockchain — where users can save data and information forever, available from any location at any time — can be used to protect against scientific censorship.
Blockchain-based funding models: As noted above, scientists and DAOs are now experimenting with NFT and token launches to finance research. Possible future directions also include:
- Adapting blockchain-based public good funding models, such as Quadratic Funding and retroactive funding, by creating platforms and protocols focused on science. Adapting emerging DeFi (decentralized finance) protocols to build sustainable long-term funding for scientists, which could look like traditional tenure. Returning value from commercializable outputs (e.g., drug IP NFTs) to support further research, making scientific communities self-sustaining.
Verifiable reputation: At present, scientists’ reputations — and therefore their ability to obtain funding — are linked to publishing metrics. Using blockchain technology, scientists could receive NFTs for doing other tasks that research communities value, such as peer review, training and mentoring, and openly sharing data. NFT collections could serve as a verifiable digital record of contributions, further encouraging such behavior. Scientists and groups of people sharing a wallet, such as a decentralized lab, could develop reputation in this way.
As academic institutions increasingly move their learning online, DeSci ecosystems may emerge as an appealing alternative to traditional scientific education. Students will be able to learn and build their digital reputations at the same time by joining community tasks, including those usually done during a dissertation, like literature reviews, data cleaning, and analysis. This would let people be rewarded for contributing to science while they study. The chance for anyone with an internet connection to contribute to the public good of science would help push back against the elitism that has long affected the field.
Ownership: Open Science has been criticized for the possible danger of drifting toward one large commercial platform eventually owning science. In a DeSci ecosystem, separate parts of science, such as peer review and reputation systems, could be governed by separate, specialized communities. This would both lessen the risk of domination by a single platform and also help science stay prepared for rapidly changing technologies and emerging threats.
DeSci also allows communities to become the new “shareholders” of scientific knowledge (e.g., through IP-NFTs that can be owned by DAOs). Value produced by such assets can then be used to finance the creation of new knowledge, in an effort to create self-sustaining scientific ecosystems. Think of COVID vaccines, developed with technology built on decades of publicly funded research. The ability for vaccine prices to be set by communities open to everyone, and for profits to be redirected into funding additional community-owned science, could substantially affect the health and prosperity of the world.
Debates and open questions
As the movement comes into view, so too do several large unknowns and debates.
Is “DeSci” the right label? Although decentralization is a key aspect of DeSci, not everyone sees it as the defining one. Some also object to “Sci” in the name, arguing that it leaves out other forms of scholarship, including arts, humanities, and indigenous systems of knowledge.
What is the movement gathered around? DeSci does not yet have a clearly defined set of shared values. At present, its various segments are shaped by the problems they aim to address. For a new culture inside science to take root, the movement would be helped by uniting around common principles.
Whose interests will DeSci ultimately serve? Contemporary science serves a blend of industries, including academic publishing, higher education, and biopharma. More evaluation is needed to understand who and what the public good of science should ultimately serve, and how blockchain technologies could help make that happen.
How will DeSci shield science from biases that come from blockchain commercialization? DeSci communities may choose to fund research that can be commercialized (e.g., projects that produce IP) instead of fundamental basic research (e.g., understanding the expression of a specific gene). To help reduce this bias, DAOs could use profits from commercial research to support basic research. Also, scientists who concentrate on basic research could use blockchain technology to track later use of any data produced, allowing them to earn royalties for generating the foundational work on which downstream commercial research is built.
It is still unclear how DAOs will work together to handle these unknowns, and the obvious question appears: How decentralized should the movement be? To what degree should DeSci projects address these questions as one unified movement or develop separately?
Challenges to navigate
Scientific quality: Questions have been raised about whether non-scientists can tell high-quality projects from poor ones. Strong reputation and governance systems are therefore essential. For instance, verified scientists could pre-screen grant applications for the broader community to vote on. Connections between DeSci and traditional science could also support quality assessment. For example, traditional funders, such as medical charities, could “bless” high-quality projects that they’re unable to back themselves.
DAOs would also gain from designing such governance systems with edge cases in mind. For example, what if the community is infiltrated by a vast number of Flat Earthers, who work to steer treasury funds toward this research?
Diverse participation: DeSci communities will largely consist of people already active in both crypto and science, two spaces where women are underrepresented. Gender imbalances (among other kinds) have real effects — women’s health, for example, has long been under-researched. It matters for groups making decisions about science to be representative of society.
Building DeSci protocols: Efforts to decentralize science have existed for years (most notably Blockchain for Science). New projects should try to understand the strengths and weaknesses of earlier efforts, and generally build with history in mind. The movement would also benefit from testing different blockchain technologies, especially those with low fees and minimal environmental impact.
Prioritizing end goals: In the end, DeSci is a movement experimenting with a set of new tools in an effort to improve science. For DeSci to work, these tools should be unobtrusive and blend smoothly into the everyday work of scientists. DeSci should therefore concentrate on enabling scientists to do good science, and ensure through robust user research that the focus stays on this rather than on these new tools themselves.
How to get up to speed
Whether you want to stay current on major DeSci news or join a DAO, here’s a list of resources to help you get familiar with the movement.
The DeSci Wiki: Dr. Jocelynn Pearl is leading the effort to build this community resource for people to learn about existing projects and how to get involved in them.
Twitter: The small but growing DeSci movement is active on Twitter, where community members announce their projects and discuss key topics. To begin, follow #DeSci and these key influencers:
- Bianca Trovò, founder of Ants Review Paul Kohlhaas, cofounder of Molecule Tyler Golato, cofounder of Molecule, core at VitaDAO and PsyDAO Jocelynn Pearl, host and producer of Lady Scientist Podcast, cofounder of LabDAO and launch team for OpenAccessDAO Nate Jacobs, a Science Fund Founder and flashpub.io founder/CEO Ariella Coler-Reilly, managing editor of VitaDAO
Beyond Twitter: Telegram and Discord are two other online spaces where you can find DeSci conversations to join and active members of the movement to connect with.
- On Telegram, check out Blockchain of Science and Women in Web3 x Science. On Discord: DeSciWorld and Opscientia.