Funding is an especially acute pain point for scientists, who spend up to half their time writing grant proposals. Success in getting funding is heavily tied to metrics such as the h-index, which quantifies the impact of a scientist’s published work. The resulting pressure to “publish or perish” incentivizes the pursuit of novel research over work... See more

Still in its infancy, DeSci lies at the intersection of two broader trends: 1) efforts within the scientific community to change how research is funded and knowledge is shared, and 2) efforts within the crypto-focused movement to shift ownership and value away from industry intermediaries.

More recently, new sites like Sci-Hub and LibGen have achieved far faster and more complete results by playing outside the rules and essentially making every academic paper in the world free of charge, to anyone, at any time, in any country – including poor people in poor places without access to expensive journal subscriptions. Let's call this the... See more