Mastodawn

I wrote a thing for @thetransmitter. The attack on scientific infrastructure happening in the US shows that relying on any one country is not a good option for science. We need to start supporting and building international, decentralised infrastructure for science.

https://www.thetransmitter.org/policy/science-must-step-away-from-nationally-managed-infrastructure/

Science must step away from nationally managed infrastructure

Scientific data and independence are at risk. We need to work with community-driven services and university libraries to create new multi-country organizations that are resilient to political interference.

The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives

@neuralreckoning @thetransmitter especially internationally managed infrastructure. It’s not efficient if it’s fragile and vulnerable

Andy Wootton Feb 21

@neuralreckoning @thetransmitter Like it was in the 1960s and 70s, before Capitalism won the battle for hearts and minds, so scientific research became an international competition and every experiment was expected to turn a profit. Nationalism is Bad, kids!

Andy Wootton Feb 21

@neuralreckoning @thetransmitter It has to be related to why Trumpers, who have very little to be proud of, have become so obnoxiously patriotic and invested in the idea of territorial expansion and cultural contraction.

Gaspar Jekely Feb 21

@neuralreckoning @thetransmitter
So well put!
We should start lobbying at our own institutions for this vision.

A federated scientific infrastructure, run by universities/libraries/funders etc The #fediverse for #openscience

"Just imagine a world in which universities mutually support one another by building scientific infrastructure based on free sharing, giving every country, from the poorest to the richest, secure access to the scientific data that can change the world for the better."

Björn Brembs Feb 21

@jekely @neuralreckoning @thetransmitter

I've started putting something together for people to send to their librarians and/or university leadership:

https://cryptpad.fr/doc/#/2/doc/edit/C65EM+kOfMsSklipy5iSYWWE/

Maybe you want to chime and and help optimize it?

I intentionally left out any specific recommendations as they'd likely differ between fields/institutions, but they could be added below the document?

Encrypted Document

CryptPad: end-to-end encrypted collaboration suite

VelteropⓐⓊ🪂🇪🇺🇳🇱🇬🇧🇩🇪Feb 21

@brembs
Björn, this below is all I get. Would it be possible to share the draft as it currently is? Thanks!

Björn Brembs Feb 21

This should be it - it just seems the formatting column is hiding the text? There seems to be a handle on the left to get rid of the column?

VelteropⓐⓊ🪂🇪🇺🇳🇱🇬🇧🇩🇪Feb 21

@brembs I don't seem to be able to do it on my phone. I'm travelling at the moment and will try later on my laptop. In any event, I'm in favour of some kind of globally federated infrastructure for scientific data and knowledge sharing.

Björn Brembs Feb 21

Lemme check on my phone...

Björn Brembs Feb 21

I got it: click on the paragraphj mark on the right and the panel dissappears so you can see the text.

VelteropⓐⓊ🪂🇪🇺🇳🇱🇬🇧🇩🇪Feb 21

@brembs Thanks, Björn, got it working.

MireilleNappert Feb 21

@brembs @jekely @neuralreckoning @thetransmitter

Hi! Digital archivist here! 👋

Encryption is interesting for sure, but the issue may become maintaining access to the file and its content for as long as needed. Can be 6 months, can be forever!

Your research data management #RDM peeps or your neighbourhood’s digital archivist #digipres can help determining the best option for your given context.

Björn Brembs Feb 21

@MireilleNappert @jekely @neuralreckoning @thetransmitter

The context is no less than all scholarly output (text, data and code) world-wide from the dawn of time until any time in the future...

MireilleNappert Feb 21

@brembs @jekely @neuralreckoning @thetransmitter

Yeah… you want digital preservation specialists in that conversation. Encrypted files are not “long-term-access” friendly.
University archives and libraries are your best bet to get into it. National archives as well, depending on your location.
For more info on digital preservation, here’s a great compendium of resources: https://www.digipres.org

DigiPres Commons Community-owned digital preservation resources

DigiPres Commons

@jekely @neuralreckoning @thetransmitter sounds like the internet and www.

Dan Goodman Feb 21

@grechaw @jekely @thetransmitter yes but with robust duplication / federation and software to automate that.

Andy Jackson Feb 21

@neuralreckoning @grechaw @jekely @thetransmitter Indeed, but my suggestion would be that you shouldn't get too far into the technicalities just yet.

We need to start with 'who will do the work' and 'who will pay the bills'. In my experience, neither funders nor academics relish long-term service delivery commitments, and libraries have been starved of the capacity to adapt by decades of 'efficiency savings'.

Dan Goodman Feb 21

@anj @grechaw @jekely @thetransmitter indeed!

Lambert Heller Feb 21

@neuralreckoning @thetransmitter
Dan, this is very well said, fully agree!
Have you heard about @SafeguardingResearch, an initiative by @lavaeolus and others? This might be of interest. Also, it reminds me of https://www.lockss.org/, and of federated/decentralised approaches my team @tibosl is developing, together with many research projects/institutions worldwide. Let's connect if you are interested in networking with librarians like us who are already up for the challenge.

LOCKSS Program

LOCKSS Program

Matt Hodgkinson Feb 21

@Lambo @neuralreckoning @thetransmitter @SafeguardingResearch @lavaeolus @tibosl

There's also POSI for principles of infrastructure: https://openscholarlyinfrastructure.org/

#OpenScience #OpenResearch #OpenScholarship #Infrastructure #OpenInfrastructure

The Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (v1.1, 2023)

Proposed POSI 2.0 revisions - A request for public comment on proposed revisions to POSI The POSI Adopters are requesting feedback on proposed revisions to POSI with a deadline of March 5th, 2025. POSI Version 1.1 Released November 2023 The POSI Adopters—15 organisations at the time—worked on clarifications to the original principles to create version 1.1 on 3rd November 2023. The new/always-current version is below. See the marked-up changes with explanations and the archive of the original version 1.0, for reference.

The Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure

Lambert Heller Feb 21

@mattjhodgkinson @neuralreckoning @thetransmitter @SafeguardingResearch @lavaeolus @tibosl
Some of POSI's suggested economic principles can hardly apply to government funded infrastructure organisations in a country like Germany, but otherwise, yes!

Dan Goodman Feb 21

@mattjhodgkinson @Lambo @thetransmitter @SafeguardingResearch @lavaeolus @tibosl POSI principles look great.

Dan Goodman Feb 21

@Lambo @thetransmitter @SafeguardingResearch @lavaeolus @tibosl awesome! I didn't know about safeguarding research or tibosl - will read up on those. I mentioned LOCKSS in an earlier draft but had to cut some stuff because I was so far over the word limit. Definitely up for a chat about networking with librarians. Have had conversations with a few - mostly about publishing related stuff rather than the more general infrastructure problem - but I'd love to connect with more.

Henrik Schönemann Feb 21

@neuralreckoning the mission-statement of @SafeguardingResearch is here:
https://safeguarding-research.discourse.group/about

@Lambo @thetransmitter @tibosl

About - Safeguarding Research & Culture (SRC) — Distributing Cultural Memory

"As researchers we often say 'we need the data'. Today, the data needs us." — Kathy Reid

Safeguarding Research & Culture (SRC) — Distributing Cultural Memory

SamuelJohnson Feb 21

@neuralreckoning @thetransmitter The Long Now Foundation seems to me to be, in principle, an organisation that ought to be supportive ($?). Brewster Kahlé of Archive.org, Jeff Hawtin, Cary Fowler and others interested in long term preservation and access to information and germplasm, open access folks should have something to offer (governance models, experience, ideas, funding partners).

#ClimateOfIgnoranceCrisis

Dan Goodman Feb 21

@samueljohnson @thetransmitter I had never heard of them before, will look them up - thanks!

Jere Odell Feb 21

@neuralreckoning @thetransmitter This is good. I think it's not unlike what many (green) OA advocates have wanted for decades. But any proposal that ends with a call for libraries to spend money differently will have to wait on overwhelming support from faculty researchers. And by "support" I mean a call to cut subscriptions to well-known databases and journals in order to reinvest in common infrastructure. In my career as a librarian, no faculty patron has ever asked me to cut a subscription.

Dan Goodman Feb 21

@jaireeo @thetransmitter yeah that's the big problem. I think we can get started with a combination of a small number of richer universities contributing a bit more to initial development, and then a fairly small ongoing financial commitment from a larger number of libraries. That will require a lot of organisational work to get it started though. It's my plan to see if this is feasible or not in discussion with libraries. I hope so. Then, once it's established, maybe more and more budget can be allocated to it.

Jere Odell Feb 21

@neuralreckoning @thetransmitter My library contributes to a number of international open source projects (e.g. DSpace) through membership models. The fees are tiny fraction of what we spend on subscriptions and even so it is a yearly struggle to ensure that we can maintain them. (It's just not what our patrons think a library is for.) With library budget cuts anticipated, this will only get harder.

@neuralreckoning see: Elixir in Europe, INSD between Europe Japan and US, etc. as examples where international collaborations do work.

Stephan Heunis Feb 22

@neuralreckoning @thetransmitter great article, thanks for writing and sharing! Based on your arguments, i think your interests might overlap with those shared in the distribits community @distribits, so the next meeting might be of interest to you: https://fosstodon.org/@distribits/114043529057185997

distribits (@distribits@fosstodon.org)

Attached: 1 image Hello fellow #distributed #data enthusiasts 👋 It’s time to register and submit your abstracts for #distribits2025! Find the link and learn more at https://distribits.live. 🗓️ 23-25 October, 2025 📍 Düsseldorf, Germany (and online) 💰 Nothing — it’s free! Join us to talk all things @datalad #gitannex, #opendata, #rdm, and everything in between.

Fosstodon

Dan Goodman Feb 22

@jsheunis @thetransmitter @distribits thanks! I'm learning about all sorts of cool projects and communities thanks to this article.