Sustainability in public-private partnership research projects is typically as challenging as it is important, and often, the software or database used in the projects plays a key role.
First of all, let’s clarify sustainability. We are not talking about environmental impact here but maintenance of outputs or deliverables of the research programs beyond the duration of the funding.
We are involved in several IMI projects where this issue regularly comes up, specifically COMBINE, GNA NOW, and ERA4TB, all of which contribute with valuable research in the fight against anti-microbial resistance.
These IMI projects are designed to deliver results that can significantly impact the health system in the EU. However, without a plan to keep the developed assets available beyond the project timelines, continued use and access to the results can be compromised, and the scientific community won’t be able to build on the results.
In other words, the projects might not have as significant an impact as they could have had.
There are a number of reasons why sustainability is challenging in these projects. Of course, the project-oriented nature is a challenge in itself. When the project period runs out, so does the funding.
Also, even if there was a plan for sustainability from the offset, things change over a period of 5-6 years. New opportunities arise, and some assets that weren’t considered initially might need to be sustained. Also, the stakeholders that benefit from a certain asset can change, thus changing the incentive for financing the project beyond its timeline.
So, there’s certainly no easy fix for this, but we still believe that there are certain things that, in general, can ease the path to sustainability for these projects.
Software and databases often play a key role in these projects. Valuable data has been created and collected, and the scientific community needs to have access to it to maximize its impact. However, software licenses then become a low practical barrier. Who is going to pick up a significant recurring expense for a platform license without a guarantee of benefiting from it?
This is why we believe that open source software can be part of the answer here. By using open source software, you take the license question out of the equation. You still have to find funding for a server and maintenance, of course, but this is typically easier. Open source software also opens up the playing field in terms of maintenance and further development, as it's not tied to a specific software supplier.
We have chosen to open source our scientific data management system grit, which is currently used in the above-mentioned projects. The projects are running on the licensed platform for now, and this also means that without any changes made, funding must be secured to maintain the platform when the projects run.
Without that funding, we run the risk of important AMR research, and collected data cannot be utilised efficiently by the scientific community going forward.
That’s why we are moving these projects to the open source version of grit.
In the case of COMBINE, one of the main stakeholders, Fraunhofer ITMP, has agreed to keep the servers running, which means that the data management platform can be maintained with a relatively low budget after the project is finished.
IMI has emphasised the importance of considering sustainability early in these types of projects and also using it as a potential nogo criterion. We believe that open source software can be an important contribution to creating sustainable public-private partnership projects, and this is one of the main reasons we have chosen this path.