DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT HERE


  • The scientific research process faces significant challenges, particularly in translating basic research into practical applications through translational research. The "Valley of Death" leads to 80–90% of research projects failing before reaching human trials, with only 0.1% of drug candidates becoming approved treatments.

  • Misaligned incentives across academia, funding bodies, and industry lead to challenges such as a lack of funding, reduced collaboration between scientists and clinicians, and poor replicability and reproducibility of scientific findings,  causing most research to falter in the “Valley of Death.”

  • Decentralized Science (DeSci) is a movement that leverages the Web3 stack to create a new scientific research model that can tackle the challenges above.

  • By using Decentralized Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), blockchains and smart contracts, DeSci can solve the key coordination problem. This enables different groups of stakeholders to align their interests on capital formation, providing incentives to see research through to the clinical stages. 

  • We have identified 4 key areas of innovation across the DeSci landscape: Infrastructure, Research, Data Services and Memes. 

    • Infrastructure includes subsectors like funding platforms and DAO tooling which form the building blocks for DeSci DAOs.

    • Research includes grassroot DeSci communities that host events globally and DAOs that formalise aligned interests from multiple stakeholders. 

    • Data Services includes publishing and peer review platforms that enable open access to scientific publications, and data management tools that provide strong data integrity and the access controls for collaboration.

    • Memes directly contribute funding to scientific experiments, or serve as investment vehicles into other DeSci projects.

  • While the existing stack can already support basic and translational research, it caters less towards clinical research which is where products have direct benefits for patients. 

  • To sum it up, decentralised science is already mature enough to impact the way scientific research is being conducted today. While there are some gaps and challenges in the current landscape, tackling the “Valley of Death” in research is already a huge step forward.


DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT HERE

Please feel free to share with us any feedback or suggestions you may have via this form