Open Science Communities & Institutions

How is IGDORE USA different?

Almost all other open science research centers provide information and services for the activities that happen outside the lab, such as pre-registration, data stewardship, and open access publication.  In other words, all of the OS expertise and resources are delivered before the research starts and/or after the work is complete.  The other key feature of other OS frameworks and services is that they serve the traditional pipeline of university and government research institutions.    

In contrast, IGDORE USA has operationalized open science as a specialized research practice throughout the entire project lifecycle, from pre-award services to closeout and beyond.  We further employ evidence-based OS methodologies and research administration in the field and in the lab.  We are the OS community of practice, with expertise in sovereign science administration and the operational capacity to host research projects.  

We have built on a half-century of scholarship and advocacy as the concept has matured from democratizing science to collaboratory research to citizen science to open access and finally to an open science praxis that is fully realized with its own disciplinary competence.  Through the decades, the academic community built the framework for open science around a core assumption that it would build momentum and enter the mainstream as a grassroots movement.  That assumption was wrong.  In fact, as the concept rose in prominence, universities began to view OS as a poor investment at best and at worst a threat to their own research portfolio.

Our mission is to move beyond the structures of the sponsored projects pipeline that funnels money to universities, private contractors, and government labs, while shutting out all other pathways to research funding.  Over the last 75 years, this pipeline has calcified with cronyism (e.g., the Matthew effect) and choked our national capacity for innovation by prioritizing ROI.  We no longer invest in big ideas or new technologies; instead, we simply iterate and move incrementally forward at a time when we have more PhD scientists, more research funding dollars, and better tools than ever before.  

In response to this crisis, IGDORE USA has built a new, fully inclusive, and merit-based branch in the pipeline.