Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in a meeting focused on database sustainability. This experience made me all the more grateful to be at Phoenix Bioinformatics, a place where the founders (Drs. Tanya Berardini, Eva Huala, Donghui Li, and Robert Muller) recognized the value of an organization, culture, incentive structure, and policies built around sustainability for digital research resources. In our case, the organizational design is a nonprofit organization; however, there are other options (B-certified corporations or co-ops {shout out to Laure Haak for championing this as a design option}). The key, I’ve come to realize, is an organizational culture and structure that is focused on the sustainability of the digital research resource and service to the user community.
From my perspective, there is a lifecycle for digital research resources which often start as a research project and transition to an operational program. This is more of a gradient than a binary status; however, the early days of a resource are often defined by whether it can be built and at some point there is a shift to a focus on meeting the needs of users. In other words, many digital research resources go from being primarily an active research project to being infrastructure supporting other research projects.
This transition is not absolute. Operational resources with extensive user communities like TAIR, seek to continually innovate. However, the emphasis changes. Innovation is done on top of stable services for users. This is not just a technical change. It often requires a team with different skill sets, different incentives, and a culture that recognizes and rewards a different set of contributions than the typical culture at a research entity.
This means that the team developing a digital research resource has to ask tough questions as the effort starts to transition from research project to operational program. Do we have the right funding model? Are we in the right organizational structure to continue to support our user community and what is becoming an operational program?
In the case of Phoenix Bioinformatics, this process was propelled by the loss of stable grant funding. I applaud our founders for being deliberate, persistent, committed to their values, and yet open to explore different approaches. Phoenix has been on this journey for over a decade and we’ve learned a lot; including that this path we are on is not for everyone. For anyone contemplating how to continue to serve a scientific community by developing a digital research resource, I don’t claim to have the answers. I do think Phoenix, through our lessons and frankly errors, knows the questions your team needs to ask to find your own answers. We’ve recently concluded offering formal consulting on fiscal sustainability. However, we are still happy to listen and share our lessons. You are always welcome to reach out at info@phoenixbioinformatics.org.
Josh Young
Phoenix Bioinformatics Executive Director
