[GOAL] Announcing: $850k grant from Arcadia Fund to build new scholarly search engine for public

[Jason Priem]

Thanks for the feedback, y'all!

It's so awesome that folks in scholcomm are beginning to ask questions
about who new services are coming from, the values behind those services,
and how we can make sure those values are persistent.

Let me take a stab at answering those questions for our new grant. There
are two main ones, I think:


*1. How will you be sustainable once your grant runs out?*
I'm happy to say that Impactstory is currently self-sustaining right now,
thanks to our Unpaywall Data Feed <http://unpaywall.org/products/data-feed>
product. Revenue from the Data Feed lets us to keep the data dumps and API
completely free, and generates an additional surplus. We project that
surplus will be sufficient to support products of this grant, after the two
years of grant funding are finished.  Impactstory has been around for seven
years now, and while no one can predict the future, the next seven are also
looking good.

*2. How can we be sure you won't be bought by someone whose values don't
align with open science?*
This one is harder. There are no credible *guarantees* I can offer that
this won't happen, and nor can any other organization. However, I think
stability in the values and governance of Impactstory is a relatively *safe
bet*.  Here's why (note: I'm not a lawyer and the below isn't legal advice,
obvs):

We're incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit. This was *not* true of
recently-acquired open science platforms like Mendeley, SSRN, and Bepress,
which were all for-profits. We think that's fine...the world needs
for-profits. But we sure weren't surprised when any of them were acquired.
These are for-profit companies, which means they are, er:

*For: Profit.  *

Legally, their purpose is profit. They may benefit the world in many
additional ways,  but their officers and board have a fiduciary *duty* to
deliver a return to investors.

Our officers and board, on the other hand, have a legal fiduciary duty to
fulfill our nonprofit *mission*, even where this doesn't make much money. I
think instead of "nonprofit" it should be called *for-mission*. Mission is
the goal. That can be a big difference.  Jefferson Pooley did a great job
articulating the value of the nonprofit structure for scholcomm
organizations in more detail  in a much-discussed LSE Impact post last year
<http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2017/08/15/scholarly-communications-shouldnt-just-be-open-but-non-profit-too/>
.

All that said, I'm not going to sit here and tell you nonprofits *can't* be
acquired...cos although that may be technically true, nonprofits can still
be, in all-but-name, acquired
<https://www.americanbar.org/publications/blt/2014/06/02_boyd.html>. It's
just less common and harder.

So we like to also emphasize that the source code for these projects we are
doing is open. That means that for any given project, its main asset--the
code that makes our project work--is available for free to anyone who wants
it. This makes us much less of an acquisition target. Why buy the cow when
the code is free, as it were.

Finally, and y'all can make up your own minds about this, I like to think
our team and our board has built up some credibility in the space. Me and
Heather have both been working entirely on open-source, open science
projects for the last ten years, and most of that work's pretty easy to
find if you want to check it out. In that time, it's safe to assume we've
turned down some better-paying projects that aligned less closely with the
open science mission.

Moreover, as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, we have a board of directors that helps
keep us accountable and helps provide leadership to the organization as
well. Past board members have included  Cameron Neylon and John Wilbanks,
with a current board of me, Heather, Ethan White and Heather Joseph.
Heather, Ethan, Wilbanks, and Cameron have each contributed mightily to the
Open cause, in ways that would take me much longer than I have to fully
chronicle (and most of you probably know anyway). We're incredibly proud to
have (and have had) them tirelessly working to help Impactstory stay on the
right course. We think they are people that can be trusted. Again, you can
make up your own minds on that one.

Apologies for the rather long response...I think folks are asking great
questions that deserve full answers. We care care hard about the OA
community and we appreciate y'all keeping us accountable to our shared
values, too.
j


On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 3:02 AM, Christian Pietsch <
cpietsch+goal at uni-bielefeld.de> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 10, 2018 at 10:30:36PM +0100, Ross Mounce wrote:
> > It’s funny you mention Google, as Google Scholar was also started by just
> > two people ( source:
> > https://www.nature.com/news/google-scholar-pioneer-on-
> search-engine-s-future-1.16269
> > ). It’s an apt comparison in that respect. Even today I believe the
> > entirety of the Google Scholar team is just 3 people.
>
> Yes, but they were allowed to use Google's search index which gave
> them a bit of a headstart.
>
> I, too, would like to know how this project can be protected from
> mergers/acquisitions/sellout or sudden death after funding dries up.
>
> Cheers,
> Christian
>
> --
>   Christian Pietsch · https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8778-1273
>   LibTec · Library Technology and Knowledge Management
>   Bielefeld University Library, Bielefeld, Germany
> How to avoid Google: https://pad.foebud.org/google-alternatives
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> GOAL mailing list
> GOAL at eprints.org
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
>
>


-- 
Jason Priem, co-founder
Impactstory <http://impactstory.org/>: We make tools to power the Open
Science revolution
follow at @jasonpriem <http://twitter.com/jasonpriem> and @impactstory
<http://twitter.com/impactstory>
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