Last updated: 2023-01-25
URL for this page: https://hackmd.io/@investinopen/Funders-Summit-2022
Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI) hosted its first Funders Summit, October 31-November 4, 2022. This invite-only event took place online, and was open to those involved in the financing and resourcing of open infrastructure. Over the course of the week, participants helped to shape a pilot of a collective funding mechanism for open infrastructure. Participants discussed funding trends in open infrastructure; explored collective funding mechanisms and their feasibilities; and worked together to shape a first iteration of a collective funding mechanism for open infrastructure.
Please note:
Description: We established a shared understanding of the need for more collective, evidence-based and transparent decision-making in funding open infrastructure. Participants connected with each other and reflected on their roles in the open infrastructure ecosystem. The IOI team shared their work so far in understanding the funding trends in the open research infrastructure ecosystem.
Description: Reflecting on past and current efforts from funders, research institutions, and others in collecting and analyzing funding data, the panellists explored and discussed challenges and opportunities for further collective action in better mapping funding in the open infrastructure ecosystem.
Description: IOI's Director of Research and Strategy Richard Dunks and user researcher Taimour Azizuddin provided an overview of the Catalog of Open Infrastructure Services (COIs), designed to help provide more easily accessible, comprehensive, and actionable information for funders, users, and other stakeholders. They also shared updates from IOI's recent work with funders to better identify the value proposition of COIs.
Description: In this session, we explored existing funding models in nonprofit and corporate financing, e.g. programme-related investment, impact investing. IOI research affiliate Samala presented her work studying these models' feasibilities and recommendations for a mechanism that will provide vehicles for philanthropies, institutions, private trusts, individuals, etc to allocate resources that meet and align with community needs.
Description: In this hands-on session facilitated by the IOI Team and facilitators from GreaterThan, participants were introduced to how they can take part in the Summit's participatory budgeting experiment. This included an introduction to participatory budgeting, a demo of the platform and its functionalities, and hands-on time for participants to interact with Cobudget, the platform for this experiment fund. Session repeated on 2022-11-02.
Description: Core to any discussion of funding mechanisms is a framework and a thesis for how to prioritize open infrastructure needs to achieve and advance our mission of sustaining effective digital infrastructure needed for open knowledge to flourish. Critical to this is also an understanding of what types of infrastructure or focus areas to explore for funding potential and impact. In this session, IOI leadership shared our proposed funding framework, and invited participants' questions, comments, and feedback. This session provided an overview of the various focus areas for all participants to explore. Participants could join the 6 deep-dive sessions in the following two days to discuss each of these areas in depth.
Description: Preprints and preprint infrastructure have enabled the rapid sharing of freely-accessible research in many fields. In this session, IOI research data analyst Naomi Penfold presented the key findings from our cause research into key areas of investment to provide and ensure viable and sustainable open infrastructure for preprints, and invited discussion on possible actions.
Description: Good governance structures and practices are crucial for open infrastructure organizations for managing diverse community and stakeholder interests and fulfilling their needs in a reliable, consistent, and sustainable way. IOI's former affiliates Ravin Cline and Samuel Moore shared insights from studying nonprofit literature and governance models in scholarly communication. Participants discussed how funders can help support the building and evolution of better community governance for open infrastructure.
Description: Building upon our analysis into the financial health of nonprofits in the research sector, IOI research data analyst Tania Hernández Ortiz shed light on some of the financial strengths, risks and vulnerabilities of nonprofit organizations in this sector and opportunities for funders to help create a more financially robust and resilient open research ecosystem.
Description: Panellists discussed what critical and at-risk infrastructure can mean in open research and scholarship and infrastructure.
Description: Long-term, stable investments are needed to sustain and maintain infrastructure. In this session, IOI brought together representatives from organizations developing mechanisms to monitor the health of open source software and communities and funders of open infrastructure. Together, we outlined key issues affecting the reliability and security of open infrastructure and discussed potential interventions.
Description: To make open infrastructure the default in research, we need to raise awareness for open infrastructure services and build capacity around their use to ultimately increase their adoption. Through this open discussion, we gathered information about and reflected on existing initiatives in training and community engagement for open infrastructure, facilitated the sharing of insights from engaging with diverse stakeholder groups, and identified opportunities for further research and investment.
Description: In this hands-on session, participants allocated funds on Cobudget with support from facilitators from the IOI Team and GreaterThan. They shared their thoughts on what they have learnt, what's missing, and what needs urgent funding and resourcing in the open infrastructure space, as well as surfaced additional questions and considerations to help shape this experimental collective fund. Session repeated on 2022-11-04.
Description: In this final session, the IOI team led participants to reflect on what we have learnt during the Summit week, identify possible next steps, and prototype a shared roadmap forward.
Description: This informal, open discussion followed Tuesday's discussion on funding models. The IOI team and participants reflected on the learnings from the week, together with IOI research affiliate Samala's findings and recommendations, to surface key questions that will enable us to together move this work forward.
This page first published: 2022-11-22
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