The State of Independent Technology Research Report – An Evidence for Collective Action ✊🏼
Despite mounting challenges, our survey with independent technology researchers across six continents and several disciplines reveals powerful evidence that researchers recognize the value of mutual support and collective action. (1/2)
Across sectors, public interest technology researchers are facing growing risks – surveillance, censorship, legal uncertainty, and inequitable funding. The conditions are often unequal across regions.
These stories don’t just evidence the crisis – they are calls for solidarity, mutual support, and structural change.
Read the full report: https://independenttechresearch.org/citr-report-2025/
Tech companies and other powerful actors create and exploit artificial divisions within the research community: STEM versus non-STEM researchers, academics versus journalists, university-affiliated versus independent, senior scholars versus emerging voices.
These divisions are manufactured. What unites researchers is more powerful than what divides them: the right to conduct research that serves the public interest.
Read the full report! https://independenttechresearch.org/citr-report-2025/
Join us for the launch of the RAIDAR Research Hub, a collaborative platform connecting researchers working on information disorder across Asia!
Brandi Geurkink (CITR) will speak on “Challenges to Funding Independent Internet Research” with Gbenga Sesan (Paradigm Initiative), moderated by Micheline Rama (The Asia Foundation).
9 Oct 2025, 7 PM Bangkok / 12 PM UTC
Register: https://asiafoundation.zoom.us/meeting/register/e1V8dpFbShSHs8FYDPK5tQ#/registration (1/2)
Our new report – the State of Independent Technology Research: Power In Numbers – maps the threats that public interest tech researchers are navigating across 6 continents. Yet, despite systematic attacks, Coalition members are building systems of protection and care that reflect the power of collective solidarity:
- Filing amicus briefs
- Building legal support systems
- Creating peer-to-peer support networks
- Facilitating information sharing
A systematic shutdown of access to platform data has created what researchers call a “data desert.”
Twitter’s free API powered 17K+ studies. CrowdTangle offered rare insight into content virality on Facebook. Today, that infrastructure has disappeared.
How are you navigating the “data desert”?
Read more in our latest report, "The State of Independent Technology Research: Power In Numbers":
https://independenttechresearch.org/citr-report-2025/
The State of Independent Technology Research report maps the funding landscape for public-interest tech research – drawing on experiences from Coalition members across six continents.
How are you navigating funding gaps in your work? 💭
Read the full report!
https://independenttechresearch.org/citr-report-2025/
85% of independent technology researchers identify funding as their most significant challenge.
Despite funding pressures, researchers are developing innovative mutual aid networks and alternative funding strategies. Coalition members with funding capacity share infrastructure and tooling with other members unable to afford access, demonstrating the power of community responses and collective action.
Read the full report and share!
https://independenttechresearch.org/citr-report-2025/
>35 years after the Web and >20 years of social media, we still lack clarity on tech’s impact. How systems are designed, what data trains them and whether they deepen inequality remain unanswered.
Independent researchers, globally, are closing this gap - despite barriers and corporate secrecy. Our new report spotlights their work and why it matters.
Our new report, The State of Independent Technology Research 2025: Power in Numbers centers voices from six continents — researchers navigating surveillance, censorship, resource injustice and more, in real time through collective and coordinated action.
Read the full report: https://independenttechresearch.org/citr-report-2025/ (2/2)
