The document discusses the need to rearchitect science for the 21st century by creating a digital core for scientific information sharing and collaboration. It notes that science has become more essential than ever before and outlines several needs, including common standards to connect innovation, free flow of information, advancing interdisciplinary science, and connecting the developed and developing world through open access to scientific knowledge. The goal is to lead social change toward universal science literacy and collaboration to meet these goals.

1. REARCHITECTING
SCIENCE
A VISION FOR
STM IN THE 21ST
CENTURY
ADAM BLY 28 MAY 2009 BALTIMORE

3. “ such a difficult moment, there are those who
At
say we cannot afford to invest in science, that
support for research is somehow a luxury at
moments defined by necessities. I fundamentally
disagree. Science is more essential for our
prosperity, our security, our health, our
environment, and our quality of life than it has ever
been before.”
President Barack Obama, April 27

9. We are inspired by the potential of
science to improve the state of the world
and we make media and technology to
help realize that potential.

10. KNOWLEDGE
IS GOOD

11. MASSIVE
CHANGE

12. Listen then Lead:
What do
scientists think?
Seed State of Science Report

13. Science is not a
closed system

14. 65%
Cite literature as having an influence on their science

15. Global
collaboration is
fundamental

16. 62%
Are actively involved in at least one international collaboration

17. Peer-review
still matters

18. 77%
Agree that peer-review remains essential to scientific progress

19. Scientists care

20. 70%
Believe science can be used to advance the cause of peace in the world

21. 80%
Feel obliged as scientists to address the biggest challenges facing humanity

22. 61%
Feel obliged as scientists to speak with journalists about their work

23. 74%
Feel obliged as scientists to inform policymakers about science

24. 83%
Feel obliged as scientists to be environmentally conscious

25. The born-digital
have come of age

26. 15 Petabytes
31 Billion
2 Years

27. “ The entire archive of science
publishing should be open-access and
online. But this will be the outcome of
a slow political and value realignment in
science… Researchers should get in the
habit of posting data on their websites.”
Bosco Ho, PostDoc in Bioinformatics, USA

28. 84%
Believe that scientific papers should be freely available to other scientists and the public

29. “ is difficult to find information on
It
funding, people, meetings, etc… every
organization has their own web
resources, and there are no centralized
sources of information, or they are
incomplete.”
Emilio Perez, PostDoc in Chemistry, Spain

30. “ have colleagues in Australia, England,
I
U.S., Kenya, and China, and without
collaborative web tools we could never
work on anything together, since phone
calls are still too expensive.”
David Braun, PostDoc in Archaeology, South Africa

31. “ a grad student, we had a website
As
related to our research. We posted some
general info about our research. But the
coolest thing we did was stream real-
time data (eg. pH, temperature) from a
remote observing system onto the site.”
Brett Branco, PostDoc in Environmental Science, Australia

32. “Blogs are a great way to open your
notebook to the world or just the
lab. They’ rich, accessible from
re
anywhere, and automatically backed up.
From a social perspective, they’ the
re
root of your identity on the web: the
place where you communicate your
thoughts and receive communication
24/7 from anyone in the world.”
William Gunn, PhD Student in Cell Biology, USA

33. 34%
Use blogs to promote their research, discuss publications, or serve as lab notebooks

34. “The Research Web is about integrating
lots of stuff that wasn’ designed to be
t
integrated with anything. It’ about
s
getting precise answers to complicated
questions instead of a mess of Web
pages. It’ about making the user
s
experience for research on the Web
more like, well, the Web for other stuff.”
John Wilbanks, Science Commons

42. We have been
here before

45. Personal
Cumulative
Systematic
Activist
Essential

47. WE NEED TO
REBOOT (STM)
FOR THE 21ST
CENTURY

48. WE NEED
> a digital core
(not just digital
tools)

49. WE NEED
> common
standards that
connect crowd-
sourced innovation

50. WE NEED
> free flow
of information
(today it is
designed to limit)

51. WE NEED
> to advance
interdisciplinary
science, restructure
societies

52. WE NEED
> to connect
developed to
developing world

53. WE NEED
> to extract
knowledge from
information, foster a
new language

54. William Playfair (1801)

55. James Watson, Francis Crick (1953)

56. Ben Fry (2008)

57. Future Pie Chart?

58. WE NEED
> to bring scientists
together, and
together with
resources

59. WE NEED
> to lead the social
change toward
universal science
literacy

60. WE NEED
> to collaborate as
to meet these
goals, they’ not
re
“our”readers

63. Release 2.0

72. 2.2 million
monthly unique visitors worldwide