Decentralized Science: A New Paradigm for Research and Development Part Two
In our last article, we described the concept of Decentralized Science (DeSci) and why it’s important. Today, we’ll discuss the fields decentralized science can be implemented and the benefits of DeSci.
Without further delay, let’s get right into it!
Fields that Decentralized Science Can be Implemented
So maybe you’ve realized that DeSci can really change your career in science but you’re wondering if DeSci can also be applied to your science field. Do you want a list of scientific fields in that DeSci can be implemented?
The truth is, naming these fields could make us limit our minds to the applications of DeSci. DeSci can be implemented in an endless list of scientific fields whether Natural Science, Engineering and Technology, Medical and Health Science, Agricultural Science, or Social Sciences, and it even goes beyond these fields.
So if you think DeSci cannot be applied to your field, think again.
Benefits of Decentralized Science
Yes, we indirectly discussed the benefits of DeSci when stating why it is important in our first article. Nonetheless, we’ll treat it extensively here.
Unlimited Access to Data Storage Services Using Blockchain Technology
Have you ever experienced the problem of losing all your data as a user on a website? That can be so frustrating, right? Imagine losing all your research papers in an online journal.
Fortunately, issues like that can’t happen on the Blockchain. That’s because you can’t delete anything from the Blockchain. The moment your research paper tiptoes to the Blockchain, it stays there forever.
There are specialized blockchain solutions that provide these data storage services to individuals and businesses. Some of them are Filecoin, Arweave, and IPFS.
However, there are still some companies that also offer these services specifically to scientists. For instance, dClimate offers open access to climate and weather information, including information from weather stations and forecasting climate models.
Use of Smart Contracts Break the Third Party Walls
We mentioned earlier that prestigious journals take the advantage of charging a huge fee before publishing research papers even though reviewers are not paid for their reviews of these research papers.
DeSci uses smart contracts to break these pay barriers by encouraging the direct contribution of reviewers to authors. Every contribution made by reviewers is incentivized with a token. This encourages reviewers to even do more quality reviews while preserving science research culture.
Enhanced Community Spirit by DAOs
The contributions of individuals in the science community could be better enhanced by Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). Remember that in traditional science, access to quality papers is limited and you have to pay a huge subscription access fee.
However, with DAOs, activities that revolve around sharing of research papers, curation of research materials, and review and financing of papers can be rewarded. This encourages community spirit and even knowledge sharing among stakeholders in science.
Use of Blockchain to Ensure Censorship-Resistant Content
One thing blockchain is known for is its immutability feature. Sometimes, research papers are altered for the interests of certain persons. This cannot happen with DeSci. When any research paper is added to the blockchain, the information in it cannot be altered and even though it is altered, the change can be seen by the public on the blockchain.
Intellectual Property Rights Preservation Using NFTs
In traditional science, there’s a popular challenge of knowing the actual creator of a particular innovation. There have been cases where the innovation of a scientist was stolen by another scientist.
DeSci solves this problem with NFTs. Researchers can mint their research findings into NFTs and choose to trade them if they wish. There are still some improvements being made in IP NFTs to ensure that it’s favourable to everyone. For now, it is believed that trading the NFTs doesn’t automatically transfer full ownership to the buyers. Money gotten from these trades could also help in funding the project further.
Let’s give an example…
A pharmaceutical company might have found a new antibiotic drug that is deadly to a certain species of microorganisms. However, they might not have sufficient funds to produce this drug in mass numbers.
They could choose to mint their research findings into an NFT and at every value gotten after purchase, they could use it to sponsor production.
Whatever the buyers get to do with the IP NFTs purchased depends on the agreement binding the buyers and the pharmaceutical company.
Vast Funding Opportunities Using Blockchain-Based Models
You don’t need to publish one million papers to get funded. You don’t need to know someone that knows someone that knows someone before you get funded. DeSci has come to increase your chances of getting funded by implementing efficient blockchain-based models.
Decentralized Finance Protocols can be used in tokenizing research grants, creating prediction markets for scientific funding, creating DAOs to manage funding, creating decentralized crowdfunding platforms, etc. to increase funding opportunities.
Retroactive and Quadratic funding systems can be used to ensure the distribution of funds by the public to quality projects.
Even IP NFTs can be used in funding research projects. Remember, the example I gave about the pharmaceutical company? That’s a typical example.
Conclusion
DeSci is quickly establishing itself as a dependable alternative to how conventional science operates by giving researchers and scientists access to financing options, more open peer-review processes, and paths for increased ownership over scientific data and intellectual property.
Now you’ve known all about DeSci and you’re excited to tap into this field as the scientist that you are. Your question might be how can you do this?
You can do this by joining existing DeSci platforms. We’ll take you through a list of DeSci platforms in our next article. We can’t wait for you to read it!
Are you still confused about any aspect of DeSci? Do you have further questions or suggestions regarding DeSci in general? Drop all you have in the comment section. Let’s discuss🤗
