About the project

This initiative aims to look at practical solutions that leverage the distributed registry and smart contract elements of blockchain technologies.  It will establish a consortium of organizations committed to working together to solve scholarly communications challenges that center around peer review.

Digital Science is managing the project and looks forward to coordinating with further partners who wish to become involved. Katalysis will use its market-leading expertise in blockchain technologies to implement the test platform.

The initiative is divided into 3 phases:

Phase 1: Pilot Phase

(participation almost closed)

  1. Develop first version of review information data store for selection of publishers/titles (exact data stored TBD)
    • Review process can be independently verified
    • Review info is fed to ORCID researcher profiles
    • Short-term collaboration and confidentiality agreement among initial organizations
  2. Investigate long-term structure of the initiative
    • Financial model (e.g. similar to Crossref, ORCID)
    • Type of organization (e.g. non-profit membership)
  3. Set up steering committee
    • Governance
    • Reporting
  4. Investigate legal aspects (e.g. GDPR)

Phase 2: Minimal Viable Product

(applications open for new publishers summer 2018)

Together with members of phase 1 we will describe the framework for phase 2.

High-level goals are as follows (subject to change based on phase 1 discussions):

  1. Add additional publisher partners
  2. Implement long-term financial & organizational model
  3. Extend functionality

Phase 3: Advanced Development

To be decided but the approach is likely to involve:

  1. Onboard more publishers
  2. Investigate applications outside of peer review