DeSci: The Future of Modern Science

With the rapidly developing blockchain technology, scientists are getting more interested in using it for their studies. Finally, they have found a proper way to utilize smart contracts and tokens to increase efficiency and to expedite scientific progress. 

Principal scientific centers usually need a ton of resources in order to improve the sphere. However, these centers possess the power to limit access to these resources for researchers and scientists themselves. In this article you will learn about DeSci and how this movement has emerged in response to that and a list of other problems faced by the scientific community. 

De…What?

Nowadays you are able to see tons of definitions for the DeSci. However, it all comes to a simple explanation of it as a possibility for science to move on and grow its efficiency worldwide. To give the specialists an instrument for making science more available and stronger than ever.  

DeSci, or decentralized science, is an environment focused on establishing a self-regulatory system of obtaining and spreading the knowledge, scientific studies and equitable distribution of funds for research and development. 

This DeSci term also might include the possibility of freely expanding the collaboration of scientists without any borders and intermediaries needed. 

At the moment, the technology is in the beginning of its development, making the first shy steps to great results in future. This, at least, is what scientists and other participants of this sphere hope and work for.   

Something mutual with modern science?

Sure, DeSci has a lot in common with science in the 21st century, because it’s introduced to solve its problems. Let’s observe a few core issues that the scientific space faces today. 

1. Funding. Financing bothers people of science worldwide. Applying for grants and making reports eats a lot of time, which could be spent on more important things. Using blockchain tech, decentralized finance and NFT may ease the search for sustainable funding sources.  
2. Reputation check. Now the reputation of scientists relies on the Hirsch index. It measures the quantity of publishings and quotings made. It also defines the chances of obtaining funding from government or private foundations. The blockchain will record the reputation in NFT. It will store information about the scientist and his research. The non-fungible token will become the guarantee of a verifiable reputation. These tokens will be available both for research, and for review, training, mentoring, and open data spreading. When citing a scientific work, researchers will need to mention the NFT tied to this work. Users of DeSci platforms will be able to rate a publication with its token. This will help to track the benefits of research. Via NFT, the scientific community will decide whether to trust the scientist, and DAO will decide whether to grant funding.
3. Accessing and sharing the data. Most scientific docs and studies aren’t available for free public use. DeSci solves this problem. That’s how people will be able to stay informed about what’s going on in the field.      
4. Political issues and censorship. The governments have a great impact on the community and publishers. Under such pressure, many “inappropriate” research materials are not released or distorted. DeSci prevents such incidents. All the decisions are taken by the DAO scientific community via voting. Due to blockchain, information stays in the network and is available for anyone anytime.  
5. Validation of research. Science has such a problem as the replication crisis. After being released in scientific magazines, plenty of works are repeated by independent researchers. As a result, tons of scientific discoveries aren’t confirmed. However, they remain true for a long time. Discoveries that can’t be confirmed in repeated experiments are cited 153 times more frequently. DeSci solves this issue by creating standards for publishing and storing research. The introduction of evidence technology (proof-of-existence) might aid the scientific community to avoid the unconfirmed publications.

So these are the common difficulties of the industry. There are also much smaller obstacles, which might be resolved by DeSci with time. As we can see, the above points are enough to complicate the life of scientists. With decentralized science, most issues will disappear and allow the scientific community to evolve, and to present their discoveries to society. 

Where it all leads — DeSci projects

The growth of DeSci, and its adoption by the scientific community will boost the progress. But what’s going on right now? Are there any projects or companies supporting DeSci and being ready to embody its ideas? Let’s check some of them out. 

VitaDao

Truly, a decentralized science in action! In short, VitaDAO aims to decentralize drug development, focused on prolonging peoples’ lives and improving their quality. This project funds research at an early stage.  

VitaDAO has its own VITA token used for governance and supporting the whole ecosystem. VITA gives holders a right to join the voting and make decisions concerning the VitaDAO platform. 

SCINET

This is a project based on blockchain. It allows retail and investors to directly take part in investing in scientific studies and tech. They also provide researchers with a special blockchain cloud laboratory. 

By the way, the SCINET is powered by the Internet Computer (ICP). As said on SCINET’s website, it activates a possibility to create a truly decentralized ecosystem. 

LabDAO

It’s a special company made to launch the progress in computational life sciences. LabDAO will be useful for both independent specialists or institutional affiliates — it will deliver all the instruments needed to find investors, collaborators, and to execute research.   

Bio.xyz

It’s literally an accelerator of biotech DAOs supporting builders of DeSci. It gives them the resources, tools, and set of legal and smart contracts. The team aims to enable decentralized science DAOs in order to use IP-NFTs to fund, govern and evolve data from firms, universities and individual researchers all around the world. 

molecule

It’s a DeSci research funding platform. It works as a marketplace for researchers looking for investors and for the investors themselves searching for great scientific projects to put money in. So, the main function of a molecule is to connect both parties. 

There are more DeSci projects out there, however many of them are more theoretical. They’re looking for funding to implement their ideas and push science forward. They are assisted in this by such organizations as Experiment and Crowd Funded Cures. 

The final word

Due to blockchain, scientists and researchers will be able to securely and privately store, share and access the scientific data. As for today, DeSci is on the experimental stage trying to make the scientific sphere available and transparent. With the use of new DeSci tools we can expect expanding the rights of scientists and achieving new scientific results to accelerate progress. 

Some of the DeSci ideas and theories might sound crazy and unrealistic. Time will tell which of them will simply fall off and which will really work, helping both scientists and regular people to get access to life-saving information.

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