Findable is Fundable. This is an idea that most researchers agree with. To increase your likelihood of attracting funding and collaborators, you need to have a web presence where you tell your unique story. You support that story with data and details - about your latest research insights, your publications and your all-star team.
This is more important than ever as growth in science requires growth in funding, which has remained relatively flat for a long time, but has declined as a percent of the federal budget and for many projects not related to Covid-19 is restricted or paused.
While the NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, competition remains high. So you want to stack the deck so that the foundation or the private donor or the pharmaceutical company who doesn't know you today, finds you and reaches out.
It’s matchmaking stories like this one that we love hearing: A Texas Tycoon Throws Millions at the Covid-19 Testing Puzzle
But it’s hard to meet your next investor because a lot gets in the way when you want to open up.
Let’s start with the biggest factor that’s usually not so obvious - culture.
You need a research culture that wants to open up and scale up. You need a management team that believes in collaborative science, sharing discoveries and crowdsourcing patient stories to build their brand and have an edge. You need principal investigators, lab managers and doctors that are fired up to share their discoveries today, and not two years from now when their paper is published and old news.
How do you know if you’re ready to open up? We often hear these indicators: if marketing has more stories than they can tell, if IT has more website tickets than they can keep up with, and if philanthropy craves more ways to connect donors with their interests.
Next is how a culture can get there.
It starts with a playbook and technology that includes checks and balances.
I want to share the playbook and technology that Harvard used to get comfortable opening up and expanding it’s online footprint. Here’s what they committed to and has worked over the past ten years:
- Actively encourage full-time employees and students to create websites
- Make it easy for them to start with a click of a button (no approvals needed)
- Give them templates with Harvard colors, logos & branding that marketing approves of
- Offer weekly trainings where they can get help getting started
By embracing this open approach, researchers, marketing and IT will save time and be able to get back to their primary work.
Want to see examples of how other research organizations are implementing an open publishing approach? Check out these customer stories that highlight how they publish and collaborate faster.
