Every weekday, thousands of researchers around the world access the Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR), which contains the most reliable and up-to-date genomic information available on the most widely used model organism in the plant kingdom. But now, to those users' horror, TAIR faces collapse: the US National Science Foundation (NSF) is phasing out funding after 10 years as the data resource's sole supporter.
TAIR's plight is emblematic of a broader crisis facing many of the world's biological databases and repositories. Research funding agencies recognize that such infrastructures are crucial to the ongoing conduct of science, yet few are willing to finance them indefinitely. ...
Advertising and sponsorship are unlikely to bring in enough money to pay the experts needed to maintain such resources. And the superficially plausible idea of charging subscription fees is effectively unworkable for facilities such as TAIR, because the producers and consumers of data are essentially the same community. Scientists provide data and resources for free, because sharing benefits everyone. However, they would be considerably less likely to deposit the fruits of their labour if this synergy was removed from the equation. ...
The problem is acute even for modest resources. Two examples are the kidney database EuReGene and the mouse-embryo database EURExpress, both of which were launched with funds from the European Commission that have run out in recent months. The databases are currently being maintained on a hand-to-mouth basis, and the scientists who built them don't know where to turn for maintenance money. Yet the European Commission's investment will have been wasted if the databases disappear.
It is time for a whole new approach. Front-line biology cannot function without these resources, so solutions must be found at both national and international levels.
Governments must ensure that at least one of their national funding agencies has money specifically set aside for the long-term support of bioresource infrastructures. ...
But action is also needed on the international front. ... What is required is an international cost-sharing organization that could fund competitively selected infrastructures, large and small. ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 11/19/2009 04:22:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
