As anyone in the scientific community will tell you, receiving funding for research and projects is one of the most important and difficult parts of the sector. Many promising projects, unfortunately, never see the light of day due to not getting enough funding. 

The community has been speaking out about this issue for years and many efforts have been made to secure funding for various projects. 

One of the newest of these efforts is Science DAO, a blockchain-based DAO that is looking to increase funding equity in the science world. Launched on May 5, 2022, the project’s native token #THRY has been made available on Uniswap. 

How Does Science DAO Work

So, you’re a scientist who has come up with an amazing innovation that can contribute positively to society. But you need funding to conduct more research, bring this project to fruition, and turn it into a viable market product. 

Getting funding via traditional means is very tedious and competitive and you might not want to deal with the traditional funding gatekeepers. Now, you can turn to a project like Science DAO to get your work off the ground. 

A DAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization that consists of people coming together to achieve common goals and governed by the principles of democracy and with blockchain technology at its center. Science DAO, in particular, is comprised of fellow scientists, research institutions, universities, and so on. 

So, how do you go about getting funding from Science DAO? Well, as long as you are a part of the community, you can pitch your project to all the Science DAO members. The community will then vote on whether your project will be funded or not. 

If your project is funded, an NFT collection will be created for it and then offered for sale to the community. The price of the NFT will be based on the value of your project at the time and can increase as the value of your project increases. 

For people outside of the Science DAO community who might want to invest, they can do so via the native $THRY token. But what if your project doesn’t get accepted for funding?

In this case, it has already been pitched to the community, which includes universities and research institutions. One of these may also reach out privately to fund your research anyways. 

Science DAO’s biggest mission is bringing more accessibility to the scientific community. As such, there are fewer hurdles to having your project pitched to the community and the process of approving a project for community support is a democratic one. 

By holding the native $THRY token, users enjoy voting rights and get more of a say if they hold  a large number of tokens. Beyond just financial support, Science DAO is also working to build the world’s biggest DAO think tank. 

For scientists and inventors, this means a chance to network, share ideas, and tap into an energetic and open community. 

Why Science Needs DAOs

For the scientific community to reach its highest potential, it is imperative that DAOs like Science DAO are embraced. This is because they allow other overlooked projects to have a chance to shine and receive the funding that they may need. 

They also democratize the process of offering funding, making sure that scientists are not beholden to gatekeepers and that everyone gets a say. Using blockchain-based tools like NFTs, cryptocurrencies, and DAO-based voting systems, Science DAO is making sure that equity within science can be achieved.