[GOAL] Help identify candidates for the 3rd SCOSS funding cycle

[Fiona Bradley]

Dear Members of the Open Science Community,

Apologies for cross-posting.

Two years into helping secure vital, non-commercial services within the Open Science community; the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS) is searching for new potential candidates to help fund. If you are a non-profit essential infrastructure for Open Access or Open Science of international significance and are concerned about your sustainability, this mail is for you.

SCOSS<http://www.scoss.org/> launched in late 2017 as a response to a growing concern over the security of the infrastructure underpinning Open Science today. The intent? To ensure that key services like the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and SHERPA/RoMEO, services that aid the scientific and scholarly community in the accessing and sharing of research, have the solvency to exist as well as innovate and evolve.

In short, this is how the initiative works: SCOSS provides the framework and funding structure, vetting potential candidates based on a defined set of criteria. The most eligible of those that pass the vigorous evaluation are then presented to the global OA/OS community of stakeholders with an appeal for monetary support in a crowdfunding-style approach.

To date, more than 1.5 million Euros have been pledged to help fund DOAJ and SHERPA/RoMEO, the first services selected in our pilot first funding call.
Our second call for funding recently went out to support DOAB, OAPEN, PKP and OpenCitations, who are looking for funding for the next 3 years.

We're reaching out to you now as we are preparing to pre-screen services for eligibility for SCOSS's third funding cycle; perhaps you are with a non-profit organisation, with an international scope, are reasonably well-established but concerned about your sustainability.
At this point, the board is seeking to identify a field of such potential candidates to vet; among the basic qualifications: eligible services must have a non-profit status in the country in which they are based and/or be affiliated with or owned by a research or educational institution.

Services that are interested in seeking SCOSS funding are invited to send us a pre-application as a formal expression of interest in applying. For the information we require, see here<https://forms.gle/TzKy37rN1CXuUBQY7>.

To be considered, all pre-applications must be submitted to https://forms.gle/TzKy37rN1CXuUBQY7 by Saturday, 29 February 2020, 11pm CET.
SCOSS will evaluate all submissions; those organisations that meet the SCOSS aforementioned description while making a clear, strong case for community support will be invited to apply formally later in 2020.

For all questions, please direct them to <info at scoss.org<mailto:info at scoss.org>>

Thank you for your interest and support in this effort to secure our vital Open Science infrastructure.

Kind regards,

Fiona Bradley
On behalf of the SCOSS Advisory Group
http://www.scoss.org<http://www.scoss.org/>
info at scoss.org<mailto:info at scoss.org>

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