Impact through openness
While the value of scientific outputs depends on others being able to build on them, current research sharing practices prioritize the appearance of validity over the substance of that value: enabling downstream use. Rigidity, sluggishness, secrecy, and consensus gating in the existing system leave much of the underlying science unavailable or unusable. The cost is a massively squandered opportunity for public impact.
These limitations are becoming even more consequential as machine-assisted and autonomous research changes how science operates by the day. The status quo is no longer an option. If we can’t do research and share it how we used to, what’s the alternative?
At Astera, we treat how science is shared as a research problem in its own right. We experiment with potential solutions, including on behalf of those who can’t or won’t. We’re not after a single path or solution waiting to replace the journal. Instead, we build interoperable pieces and test them in the open. These range from The Stacks, our platform for reimagining how reusable research is shared, to programs that release AI-ready scientific data and tools that make it easier for scientists to share their work and for others to build on it. We don’t claim to have the answers, but we have a unique opportunity to try.
Our starting point is table stakes.
- Share the whole record. Data, code, protocols, designs, models, and failed attempts, including the messiness and uncertainty. We put these artifacts, their metadata, and rich context in durable public repositories under open licenses, findable by people and machines.
- Release as you go. Work goes out while the project is live, so you learn from the community in real time. Informative failures can be just as useful as successes.
- If it’s ready to be useful, it’s ready to share. You decide—not a reviewer, an editor, a press cycle, or a collaborator’s timeline.
- Discussion happens in the open. Rigor is what survives reuse, replication, and scrutiny over time. Evaluation comes after sharing, from anyone who can engage with the work. Commentary stays attached and visible to benefit readers, not just authors.
Astera time and funds will never go toward journal publications. Everything we fund is released openly, as a record others can build on.
This applies to everyone we fund: employees, grantees, contractors, and collaborators. We say so up front and in writing, helping incoming scientists make a clean transition. Collaborators remain free to build on what we release and cite it in their own downstream work with their own practices.
Read the full policy here.
If you’d rather spend your energy on the science than the currency its outputs afford, you’ll fit in here. No one will ask where your work appeared. They’ll ask what it showed and what it makes possible.
Researchers, grantees, and the experimenters who build the tools science runs on: I’d love to hear from you. The search space of solutions is vast, and we’ll need creative approaches from everyone who shares our optimism that the best days for science lie ahead.
Prachee Avasthi, Head of Open Science
prachee@astera.org