Why DeSci is not yet perfect? Top 7 challenges

The world of Decentralized Science (DeSci) is new to most people in the scientific world. But it can soon provide an attractive alternative to traditional forms of scientific life. While DeSci has the potential to combat censorship, make financing more accessible, and give researchers hope for equality and transparency, it still has many issues to overcome before it changes the game.

What is DeSci and why it is so attractive

DeSci is, briefly, an Open Science on a blockchain. It uses Web3 means to make research funding, conducting, and publication faster, easier, and more accessible. Community-led entities now exist in the form of DAOs — decentralized autonomous organizations that have no central government.

People themselves make decisions about each other’s research proposals and vote for them with their tokens. Rules of their decision-making are written and executed via smart contracts (they encrypt all the procedures needed and are performed automatically). Community members are motivated to vote for projects with more potential for success, thus getting more benefits from it.

They also share information and data without paywalls and review proposals for tokens which can be both reputation and incentive mechanisms. Therefore, DAO manages to solve all main problems of the research work way: funding, getting an early assessment, data access, being reviewed, creating reputations, IT safety (via NFT and other means), and publishing.

And it does. But not without some inevitable bugs and adverse beginnings. DeSci is still in its childhood and it has many problems yet to solve. So what are these problems for now?

1: DeSci is not easy to access

Traditional science is often inequality, and DeSci provides more fair mechanisms. But there is another barrier: scientists are rarely into IT, crypto-wallets, tokens, NFTs, and such. These things are not easy to understand, not to mention live by.

As it stands, most of the DeSci buzz is created by Web3 people. But the very aim of DeSci is to use Web3 instruments to bring benefits to scientists. There is a contradiction that may slow the process of making DeSci a mass movement. And DeSci, by its nature, is a thing that works most effectively when there are lots of people all over the world using it.

Decision.

To get scientists involved, DeSci is to build infrastructure that could be comfortable to work in. Communication is also needed to make Web3 instruments convenient and usable. The situation can improve if technology ambassadors make several steps towards researchers, such as community education via simple guides and explaining ways of using DeSci tech to scientists and the general public.

2: DeSci does not collaborate enough with traditional science institutions

This bug is partly due to the first one: for now, DeSci doesn’t match with academia, distancing and critisizing it. Academia “doesn’t believe” in DeSci or doesn’t know about it. They need a common language to speak and common values to share.

Decision

New forms of collaboration between the two worlds should emerge. Traditional institutions that are not able to fund their project themselves can use DAOs for that purpose. At the same time, scientists from universities can contribute their expertise in the DAO during studies assessment procedure.

3: DeSci has to discover new management tools

There are plenty of instruments in Web3 that work differently and solve different problems. DAOs need to identify and practice effective voting and operationalizing governance and decision-making procedures.

The IP (intellectual property) issue is also of great importance. Legal procedures are to be developed to make it safe in complicated situations. For example, often researchers do not have full ownership of the IP, because they share it with their institution. So they will have to arrange an agreement between the university and the DAO. Or a big player (an institution, a company, or an industry) may buy an IP of a small researcher who works on a problem that can potentially reduce their profit.

Decision

DAOs are working on appropriate regulations that predict such situations. It is vital to look at each other’s experience and the history of the movement, trying different blockchain technologies. New forms of IP translation and safety control will be demanded, too.

4: DeSci may face research quality issues

Token holders are equal in their decisions, and there are no demands for them to be educated or capable of distinguishing good research from the trash. Think of a DAO where all the members are homeopaths or anti-vax enthusiasts.

Decision

DAOs imply mechanisms of governance and reputation management that could mitigate this effect. For example, it can be a procedure of pre-screening all the proposals by experts (verified scientists). They assess the quality of the proposal and sift out inadequate ones. By the way, this is one of the potential fields of collaboration with academia which could be a source of verified experts. They could take part in the process of approval and cut off unethical or bunk research. It is going to be one of the most difficult procedures in DAO governance — a procedure to scratch heads over.

5: DeSci might prioritize commercial research over fundamental

Members of the community may choose only those research that can be purchased and bring business success and benefits for them but not those that follow fundamental goals. They may prioritize commercialized results and avoid financing serious research.

Decision

DAOs can distribute resources so that profits from commercial research could finance fundamental research, or use the results and data of fundamental research to further conduct a commercial one. Thus DAO can potentially provide a full-cycle research collaboration that will produce data and IP from the most basic levels to practical implementation.

6: DeSci world needs common values

Currently, all the DeSci enthusiasts are for transparency, equal access to research and data, and other good things. Some of the DAOs put solving a definite problem as their mission. But there is a complication. Traditional science serves various parties, among them scientific journals, academia, pharma, higher education, and governments. For DeSci, it is unclear:

Whom do DAOs serve? Are we going to build an alternative universe with its economics where every party gets its benefit and the public good is the most? Will it be more sustainable and fair than the current one? Common values of the whole DeSci community will depend on these points.

Two examples of possible failure on the way to the bright future: possible fraud and unclear tokenomics which affect web2 people’s trust and motivation to participate in web3 projects. The other issue is that there are not many women in the Web3 world due to the prevalence of men in STEM and the crypto communities. Are DAOs going to change it?

Decision

As the DeSci environment grows, we are to define our common values and borderlines. For developing equity, DAOs need to grow well-weighted procedures considering many different aspects. Smart contracts and maybe AI could help find the best way, but we need goodwill.

7: DeSci is sometimes too centralized

Decentralization may appear a tough challenge for some Web3 guys that lack these inner qualities which allow a true, so to say, “distributed leadership”. For example, recently one of the DAOs calling for democratizing psychedelics (PsyDAO) blocked public discussion on the question of their leadership’s conflicts of interest. The problem they are striving to solve is that of a complex and delicate nature, so such behavior does no good for the DAO’s reputation.

“The D and A in DAO usually aren’t accurate — most of the time it ends up being a few actors running the project like any traditional company, with all associated risks”, — writes HealthXChange, a Web3 health tech startup, in a thread about this case.

Decision

The main treasure of all non-hierarchic communities is a set of clear procedures of horizontal communication. These may be both rules of decision execution and manners of communication inside and outside the community, its tone of voice based on its core values and mission. Smart contracts are not enough: we also need soft skills.

Wrap-up:

Let’s conclude. All in all, we love DeSci. Our love will help us to turn it into an adaptable universe that will be able to:

• develop clear and simple ways to get scientists and the general public involved;
• create a legal and regulatory basis for collaboration with traditional science institutions;
• find and develop effective procedures for governing and IP transition;
• avoid dangers of inappropriate research funding;
• successfully balance between commercialization and fundamental science;
• build a sustainable system of shared values;
• empower true decentralization which means also distributed leadership and real transparency and democracy.

Let’s unite and solve these problems together.