Over the past year, Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI) has been conducting a rigorous investigation into the State of Open Infrastructure, including characteristics of open infrastructure, funding, governance, adoption, and policy development. Today we are proud to share the results of that work.
The report provides exclusive data and analysis from this investigation of open infrastructure’s attributes and issues impacting them, including funding, governance, adoption, and policy development. By viewing open infrastructure through multiple lenses, we offer a holistic understanding of the open infrastructure ecosystem.
In addition, it integrates perspectives from multiple stakeholders to track the open infrastructure sector’s key trends and emerging opportunities for collaboration, innovation, and investment. This report also offers strategic insights and actionable recommendations to help stakeholders navigate change and complexity in research and higher education, make informed decisions, and mitigate risks.
The full report, “The State of Open Infrastructure”, can be found at this link. We are also excited to share two dashboards to explore the data behind our findings:
- Characteristics of open infrastructure - dive into our analysis based on Infra Finder data, including policies, community engagement, governance, and technical information.
- Grant funding data - explore the grant funding of open infrastructure by time, geography, funder, type of support, and type of infrastructure.
Key Findings
- Open Infrastructures demonstrate a strong and widespread commitment to community engagement and governance, as well as transparent policies and practices. Read “Characteristics of selected open infrastructures”.
- Based on our analysis of $US415M+ in grant funding, we observe that open infrastructures are named in many awards that likely do not provide funding directly to them, thus signaling their importance and impact in research and scholarship. Read “The state of open infrastructure grant funding”.
- Procurement and IT governance processes can add complexity to the adoption and implementation of open infrastructure, but we find that leveraging consortia and networks for adoption can mitigate some of the risks to individual institutions. Read "The influence of procurement and information technology governance processes on the adoption of open infrastructure" and "Trends in open infrastructure performance and adoption."
Get Involved
The State of Open Infrastructure report is a snapshot at one particular time and place, and we view this as a starting point for further exploration and development.
Please explore the State of Open Infrastructure 2024 report and let us know your feedback using this feedback form!
We invite you to be part of the conversation! In the coming months, we’ll be hosting a series of online community conversations to discuss some of the key findings, emerging opportunities, and critical next questions from each chapter of the report.
- June 18, 2024, 16:00 UTC/12:00 Eastern Time: Characteristics of Selected Open Infrastructures — register at this link
- July 17, 2024, 13:00 UTC/ 9:00 Eastern Time: The State of Open Infrastructure Grant Funding — register at this link
We will be sharing session recordings and announcing future conversations through a dedicated mailing list — please subscribe to stay updated!
We hope this report sparks your curiosity about the tools and systems the research and scholarship community relies on and helps you to think about how your decisions line up with your vision for the future of research and scholarship. If you need additional information and support around these decisions, please reach out to us. We are experienced in providing tailored research and recommendations, including discovery, due diligence, and stakeholder feedback collection, to inform the decisions you are facing.
We’re here to help and we can’t wait to continue the work of advocating for the future of open infrastructure with you.
To keep up with our schedule of community calls and other future events from the State of Open Infrastructure and other IOI projects, please subscribe to our newsletter.