Comprehensive research funding resources for researchers in LMIEs
Funding Area: Critical shared infrastructure / Infraestructura compartida critica
Problem Statement: Great research requires fair research funding competition. Fair research funding competition requires access to research funding information. Yet, the infrastructure supporting research funding information is predominantly closed behind expensive paywalls. This “closed” research funding information infrastructure is a disservice to research and researchers in two ways. One, it forms a barrier between the well-resourced and the under-resourced research institutions. Two, the closed digital infrastructure is counterintuitive to researchers’ natural workflows, limiting their access to vital information across platforms. Both of these lead to sub-optimal distribution of research funding. This closed research funding information infrastructure particularly hinders research advancement in developing nations. At scientifyRESEARCH, we host an open research funding database. As a commercial entity, we have placed strategic monetization points while maintaining accessibility to the full list of grants in our database. We seek support from IOI’s Open Infrastructure Fund to help us create even more content and functionalities for researchers in LMICs, to help with access to research funding information and advance their grant writing skills.
Proposed Activities: We propose an extension of our existing platform https://www.scientifyresearch.org with a digital, open platform dedicated to providing LMIE-based researchers with research funding information and improving grant writing skills. We currently host an open and continuously updated research funding list for researchers in developing countries: https://www.scientifyresearch.org/all-research-funding-developing-countries. This list is the #3 most frequented page on our site, with over 56K page views over the past 12 months. We propose the following activities with these timelines: **Months 1-3 Web development** that further improves the LMIE research funding list into a landing page that includes: Dedicated research funding information available for LMIE-based researchers, including adding key search filters to take it from a list to a searchable database; Multilingual grant writing resources (i.e. translations of existing and future blog posts); Option to share relevant funding information by funders, societies and individual researchers; Recorded webinars with training for grant writing skills **Months 4-6 Outreach and co-creation** Discussions with potential co-creation partners in LMIEs who will help us expand the content of the funding database; Engage key stakeholders, including universities and societies, with relevant information, including news on the platform, and live webinars; **Month 7 Grant writing webinar** Live webinar on grant writing, with our collaborator and guest speaker PD. Dr. Daniel Mertens from the German Cancer Research Center who also has his own grant writing coaching service “Scientists Need More”. https://www.schillermertens.de/ **Months 8-10 Continued outreach and co-creation campaign** **Month 11 Live webinar with guest speaker PD. Dr. Daniel Mertens** **Month 12 Reporting results of the process and sustaining the LMIE platform** Content development, including new grants and new blog posts will be continued for the duration of the 12 months project and beyond. We plan to continue with the content update on the platform at the end of the project and will sustain the project by internal funding until further funding sources can be secured. In the long-term, the LMIE research funding page will always remain open and accessible to researchers worldwide.
Openness: The proposed digital infrastructure “Digital open platform for research funding success in LMIEs” is open and fully accessible to everyone with an internet connection. Participation, in the sense of contributing to funding information, is open to everyone, with the caveat that scientifyRESEARCH retains editorial control of the content available, to serve as an independent quality control measure. We already have an active co-creation agreement with NCBS-TIFR and DBT-inStem in India and will seek more contributors throughout the project. Our outreach/dissemination strategy includes: Social media Direct outreach to key “influencers” at universities and societies Search engine discovery via our multilingual grant writing content Direct promotion to our existing network of 12K monthly visitors, 6600 newsletter subscribers and 50K grant alert emails that we send out monthly
Challenges: As with all new projects, awareness is a major challenge. Our existing page of curated LMIE research funding already has regular traffic and is well-ranked in search engine results. To further ensure success and uptake of the open LMIE research funding platform, we have an extensive, multi-action outreach plan that includes: search engine optimized content in multiple languages that would serve a majority of the populations in LMIEs, including Arabic, French, Portuguese and Spanish. Organic social media posts Social media campaigns with “lookalike” audience from our existing user base Direct outreach to key stakeholders at universities, research institutions, learned societies and funders
Neglectedness: To the best of our knowledge, there are some options available for open digital infrastructures for research, e.g. the EU had a call for the EU’s Open Science Cloud. However, these digital infrastructure projects seem to have very specific goals, none of which were dedicated to LMIE-based researchers’ grant seeking and grant writing skills. We recognize that there is a great need for the information that we provide, as demonstrated by the popularity of our developing country research funding list. While we continue this list as part of our corporate responsibility initiative, having grant funding will enable us to devote more resources to make it an even better resource for researchers in developing countries.
Success: We will measure success with the following indicators: Internet traffic to the project’s landing page Number of researchers in LMIEs that sign up to use our alert services Number of researchers in LMIEs that create user accounts on our platform Number of universities and institutions that co-create the database Number of webinar attendees
Total Budget: 24662
Budget File: pdf
Affiliations: Scientify Research Solutions AB
LMIE Carveout: Yes, our project fits. The proposed project is entirely dedicated to researchers in LMIEs.
Team Skills: Judy Mielke, PhD. Judy is the founder and CEO of scientifyRESEARCH, with extensive research experience and a successful career in science publishing. Judy’s science and editorial experience guarantee quality content in our grant database and all material published on our website. Judy is also a self-taught web developer and UX designer, having built the scientifyRESEARCH platform and currently leading the development team. Kate Gardner. Kate is the co-founder and COO of scientifyRESEARCH. She has extensive, international experience as a health care professional and a successful career in open access scientific publishing. Her leadership skills and intuitive management style ensure that our outreach campaigns are successful by a variety of metrics. Kaviya Ayyappan is our web developer with extensive backend and frontend experience. Kaviya is a dynamic member of our team and has transformed our platform since joining our team in February 2023. Our guest speaker is PD. Dr. Daniel Mertens, a full-time group leader at the German Cancer Research Center, who also coaches grant writing as part of his consultancy firm, “Scientists Need More,” Daniel’s previous webinar with us drew almost 500 participants from 58 countries.
How Did You Hear About This Call: Word of mouth (e.g. conversations and emails from IOI staff, friends, colleagues, etc.) / Boca a boca (por ejemplo, conversaciones y correos electrónicos del personal del IOI, amigos, colegas, etc.)
Submission Number: 88
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