Let's make no mistake: now is not an easy time to be starting a nonprofit, especially in the sciences, especially with humans as a core focus. But the increased challenges we face are also exectly why our work is increasingly important.
And so, I'm excited to announce the launch of Frameshifter. Our work has already been underway for the past few months, but it's now time for us to invite everyone to join our journey. What follows is a brief discussion of how we got here and where we're headed.
Eterna spins out
The team at Eterna has talked about the idea of an independent nonprofit (or at least, governance) to operate the project on and off for many years, and the ideas for how exactly that would look have varried. These discussions resurfaced last spring at an off-site retreat where we discussed what the future of the project would look like - both in terms of its mission and theory of change as well as its sustainability model.
Our impact thesis focused around access. RNA has an immensive potential as the basis of transformative technologies, but its potential, and the ethics and equitability of its development and application, are substantially impacted by who has a seat at the table - access to tools, data, knowledge, and the ability to contribute to research.
But in order to really pursue this vision, we'd need to scale. And as we worked through our options, it became clear that it wouldn't happen within acadamia. Between funding mechanisms and administrative limitations (including required leadership bandwidth), it wouldn't be sustainable to continue with our existing model. It was time to take the leap into forming our own organization.
A broader mission and philosophy - and a tagline
As we worked on the mechanics of how we would launch this new organization, a few things happened. We started thinking about our identity, our role in the ecosystem, our long-term vision, and where we might see our biggest impact. We saw artificial intelligence holding increasing mindshare in public discourse as well as scientific tools and processes with impressive promises - and concerns. We saw a continued reduction in public trust in and public sector support of science. And I had the great privilege of attending the CCC/CRA visioning workshop on Grand Challenges for the Convergence of Computational and Citizen Science Research, getting to have many great discussions with a number of colleagues in our space.
This all clarified a few things:
- The importance of connecting people with science.
- As we see an increased risk to scientific capacity, we need to maintain interest in and pathways to scientific development, and the curiosity and willingness of individuals to engage will be increasingly important.
- Increasing awareness and literacy are critical to garner trust and public support of policies that are often lifesaving - and to determine policies that are in the best interest of all people.
- We have the ability to help ensure people aren't left out from the benefits of science and technology development.
- Humans still have a critical role to play
- People will drive the direction of science.
- The roles of humans and machines are complementary/
- We only unlock the greatest potential of each when we are able to apply both collectively, effectively drawing on each other.
And so developed:
- The broader mission of Frameshifter - to accelerate discoveries and broaden inclusion in science through engaging the public in scientific research
- Our philosophy and approach
- A tagline: Discovery is for everyone
I hope to dig into some of these ideas in future blog posts as we move forward.
Onward
We have a lot of work to do. Our ideas and vision are ambitious. Also, starting a new initiative like this (even with the support of a great fiscal sponsor!) has an awful lot of admin. 🙂 Now's the time to hit the ground running. Short-term our focus is getting ourselves on our feet and securing funding to let our current team get back to full capacity and continue supporting Eterna's work and launching new research on the platform. Longer-term, we have some ambitious ideas for how we can scale our team to both substantially scale the impact of Eterna and situate it as a model for engaging the public deeply in scientific research.
A big thank you to:
- Rhiju Das and the entire Eterna community for trusting us - and especially myself - to take the reigns of Eterna's future
- The team at Superbloom Design, who have taken us on as a fiscally sponsored project and already provided us with valuable support
- Jill and Thomas, the other founding members of the Frameshifter team, for their partnership in pursuing this work
- Our entire network of folks who have and continue to support us and our mission
As a final request: If you believe in what we're doing and think you have an opportunity to collaborate, get in touch. We'd love to hear from you.
With gratitude,
Jonathan Romano
Director, Frameshifter