New interview series on the sustainability journeys of key Open infrastructure - SPARC Europe

A healthy Open infrastructure is essential to Open Science. Yet, there’s much to learn about the disparate services and resources that collectively comprise this infrastructure if we are to secure it. A new series of interviews, launched today, is part of an ongoing process that intends to gain a deeper understanding of important nodes in the OS ecosystem of services. 

Two of the 10 interviews are being released today: one with Our Research; and the other with Redalyc. The remaining interviews will be released fortnightly in pairs over the next two months.

Via these interviews, we shed light on the challenges that these services faced when looking to grow and sustain their work, and the consequences, both positive and negative, of joining forces with others. What choices were they compelled to make in the process?

OS infrastructure/services must be able to grow and develop and maintain operations, yet there is a scarcity of financial instruments and pathways for them to raise funds. This makes them vulnerable to potential acquisition by commercial operations, which lack the trust of many in the library, research and funder community.