Table 2 A roadmap to sustainable funding
From: The billion-dollar case for sustaining palaeontology’s digital databases
Action | Description |
|---|---|
(1) Embed sustainability from inception | Design databases with modular architecture and interoperability in mind. Incorporate regional and linguistic equity in API development. This enables future integration into broader infrastructures and reduces redundancy, lowering long-term maintenance costs. |
(2) Establish core infrastructure grants | Advocate for dedicated infrastructure funding schemes for domestic and international initiatives, distinct from research project grants, which support long-term maintenance, technical upgrades and data curation. Prioritize capacity building within the community in both database curation and database use. |
(3) Develop cross-sector partnerships | Collaborate with museums, universities, government agencies and industry partners to co-invest in shared data resources. |
(4) Quantify and communicate value | Systematically assess the scientific and economic value of databases to demonstrate return on investment and attract strategic funding. |
(5) Adopt attribution standards | Promote data citation, DOI assignment and recognition mechanisms to incentivize community data contributions and support funding applications that highlight demonstrable use. |
(6) Foster community governance | Create steering bodies or consortiums to coordinate long-term strategy, technical development and funding pipelines across institutions and borders. |
