DeSci Ep. #2: Addressing the Misalignment of Incentives in Science—with Patrick Joyce of ResearchHub

Only 1% of first year PhD students become research professors. 

This creates a hypercompetitive environment where scientists will do whatever it takes to get funding, even if that means tweaking statistical analyses to make their findings seem more significant.

But decentralized science is working to address this egregious misalignment of incentives and reward science done the right way. 

Patrick Joyce is the Cofounder and COO of ResearchHub, a Reddit-style forum that allows anyone to share, discuss and curate scientific papers—and earn ERC-20 tokens for doing so. 

On this episode of Boost VC, Patrick joins us to discuss the misalignment of incentives in science and describe the problem with using bibliometrics to determine who receives funding.

Patrick explains why decentralizing science is so important, exploring how DeSci will increase the adoption of open science practices and accelerate innovation in the space.

Listen in to understand how DeSci can pressure large academic journals to pay content creators for their work and learn how ResearchHub is leveraging Web3 to make capital available to scientists. 

Topics Covered

How Patrick defines science

• Pursuit of knowledge
• Verifiable results

What’s behind the replication crisis in science

• Hypercompetitive job market
• Quality judged by bibliometrics

Why decentralizing science is important

• Tweak analyses to maximize perceived impact
• Not honest, transparent or reproducible
• Only most cited scientists receive funding

Patrick’s take on the first breakthrough for DeSci

• Increase adoption of open science practices
• No longer career risk to share work in open

What drives Patrick’s conviction around DeSci

• Success not based on work ethic, intelligence
• Little innovation in drugs for mental health

How ResearchHub rewards quality science

• Allows anyone to share and discuss papers
• Earn ERC-20 tokens for participation

How Patrick builds trust in the scientific community

• Provide funding and publishing outlets
• Help meet goals of open science

What success looks like for decentralized science

• Paywall journals provide open access options
• Pay science content creators for work

Why the science incentive structure hasn’t changed

• Previous attempts not fundable
• Pirate organizations like Sci-Hub not legal

Patrick’s take on what makes publishers the enemy

• Responsible to own incentive to make money
• Charge scientists to publish, subscription fees

Patrick’s uniting purpose for the DeSci community

• Web3 offers ROI to invest in science
• Makes capital available to scientists

How Patrick defines success for ResearchHub

• Take power away from bibliometrics
• Create rockstar scientists who define culture 

Connect with Patrick Joyce

ResearchHub https://www.researchhub.com/  

ResearchHub on Twitter https://twitter.com/researchhub  

ResearchHub on Discord https://discord.com/invite/ZcCYgcnUp5

ResearchHub on Medium https://medium.com/researchhub

ResearchHub on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/ResearchHub/

ResearchHub on GitHub https://github.com/ResearchHub

Resources

Brian Armstrong & Patrick Joyce on The Sheekey Science Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FmhHLPrUIU

Clarivate Analytics https://clarivate.com/

OpenAlex https://openalex.org/

r/medicalstudent https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalstudent/

r/ImmunoPsychiatry https://www.reddit.com/r/ImmunoPsychiatry/

eLife https://elifesciences.org/

Open Science Framework https://www.cos.io/

Nature Neuroscience https://www.nature.com/neuro/

Chris Hill on Boost VC DeSci EP02 https://www.boost.vc/podcast

Authorea https://www.authorea.com/

F1000Research https://f1000research.com/

Sci-Hub https://sci-hub.se/

Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/

Hindawi https://www.hindawi.com/

MetaMask https://metamask.io/

Fast Grants https://fastgrants.org/

Kaggle https://www.kaggle.com/

Connect with Boost VC

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