CAIROS
Collective Augmented Intelligence for Research & Open Science
We're a cooperative federation of open science projects working towards collectively stewarded research commons.
Our Vision
Research commons today are being enclosed and commodified by systems that extract value from researchers rather than reinvesting it. We envision an open, living, evolving and pluralistic commons stewarded by research communities, where value is invested back into the people and infrastructure that generate it.
We view research communication not just as the sharing of information by scholars for public consumption, but rather as a process of collective intelligence: participatory, self-organizing, networked and adaptive.
We’re inspired by the vision of modular “permaculture” research where diverse contributions are recognized and the research process is unpacked into smaller, composable and connected units that enable citizen science and grassroots, distributed large-scale collaboration.
Knowing is a form of human meaning-making. Our approach to technology centers human agency and joy in research. We’re designing for collective intelligence where humans and AI systems complement and improve each other.
Transformative impact requires thriving and not just surviving ecosystems. To achieve this we recognize the need for organizational innovations, beyond new technologies. We view cooperative federation as a promising path towards implementing open and sustainable research commons. Co-operative approaches empower democratic governance, prioritize collective progress over individual competition, and unlock new forms of equitable data stewardship.
Why Now?
Scientific communities are straining under mounting challenges that threaten our capacity to address urgent problems, including knowledge fragmentation, outdated publication processes, corporate capture and austerity policies.
AI and digital networking technologies stand to play a pivotal role in the next stage of science: on one hand, they create unprecedented possibilities for empowering collaborative research. At the same time, they also risk creating epistemic monocultures, deskilling researchers, and centralizing control over research processes that should remain distributed and democratic.
This moment calls for new ways of organizing research, fundamentally reimagining how it's created, who can participate, how it is disseminated, and how the value generated from research is distributed.
What CAIROS Addresses
Open science initiatives are trapped in unsustainable models, and lack of coordination means they are all solving the same problems in isolation:
- Grant dependency - tools often sunset when funding runs out
- Fragmented user bases - each tool fights for the same audience
- Duplicate efforts and lack of shared infrastructure - projects rebuild similar components, weak interoperability
- Competition over collaboration - tools compete instead of complementing
- Weak collective voice and fragmented governance - lack of leverage and collective decision-making between projects
A Federated, Cooperative Solution
We're building a network of projects with shared vision, values and goals:
- Shared stakeholder base - cross-promotion and mutual support
- Pooled resources - shared infrastructure and costs
- Positive sum interoperation - leveraging protocols and interoperability to create synergies between projects
- Leveraged partnerships - better deals for & with vendors & funders
- Member ownership - so members can help shape, guide, and benefit from the ecosystem their contributions sustain.
- Shared governance - democratic decision-making processes
- Community of practice - sharing knowledge, connections and resources
- Building a movement, not just products - new modes of research require cultural shifts and collective action, beyond new technologies