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Dear Members of the Open Science Community, 

A year into an important initiative to help shore up vital, non-commercial services within the Open Science community; the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS) is now beginning our search for new potential candidates to help fund. If you are a non-profit essential infrastructure for Open Access or Open Science of international significance and are concerned about your sustainability, this mail is for you.

SCOSS launched in late 2017 as a response to a growing concern over the security of the infrastructure underpinning Open Science today. The intent? To ensure that key services like the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and SHERPA/RoMEO, services that aid the scientific and scholarly community in the accessing and sharing of research, have the solvency to exist as well as innovate and evolve well into the future.

In short, this is how the initiative works: SCOSS provides the framework and funding structure, vetting potential candidates based on a defined set of criteria. The most eligible of those that pass the vigorous evaluation are then presented to the global OA/OS community of stakeholders with an appeal for monetary support in a crowdfunding-style approach.

To date, more than 750 thousand Euros have been pledged to help fund DOAJ and SHERPA/RoMEO, the first services selected in our pilot funding call.

We’re reaching out to you now as we are preparing to pre-screen services for eligibility for SCOSS’s second funding cycle; perhaps you are with a SCOSS relevant organisation, well-established but concerned about your sustainability. At this point, the board is seeking to identify a field of such potential candidates to vet; among the basic qualifications: eligible services must have a non-profit status in the country in which they are based and/or be affiliated with or owned by a research or educational institution. 

Services that are interested in seeking SCOSS funding are invited to send us a pre-application as a formal expression of interest in applying. The following information should be included:

• • • Name of the person applying on behalf of the service/organisation and contact details
    • Organisation name
    • Year the organisation was established
    • Legal status of the organisation (e.g. non-profit)
    • In short descriptive form, the organisation’s aim
    • A description of the organisation’s financial situation and how SCOSS might be able to support efforts toward gaining sustainability (500 words max)

To be considered, all pre-applications must be submitted at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdsRiVAKvM85RIFvVqxVi0AOCgWpP8B-nvp5QojBfLiGUkp_A/viewform by 31 October. 
SCOSS will evaluate all submissions; those organisations that meet the SCOSS aforementioned description while making a clear, strong case for community support will be invited to apply formally in late 2018.

For all questions, please direct them to info@scoss.org

Thank you for your interest and support in this effort to secure our vital Open Science infrastructure. 

Kind regards,

Iryna Kuchma
On behalf of the SCOSS Advisory Group
http://www.scoss.org
info@scoss.org

• Texas Digital Library plans to host a DSpace North America Users Group Meeting in Austin, Texas in February 2019.
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• DuraSpace has historically allowed projects to make their own decisions on issues like this one, provided they abide by the DuraSpace Code of Conduct. That code states that DuraSpace is “an international community dedicated to providing a welcoming, inclusive and positive experience for all members of our community,” but does not refer explicitly to event hosting locations.
• TDL uses an inclusivity statement for other events it hosts and could repurpose for this event. See here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XHNwgfSb1JuvaidSYYKTEOazVlSVL2FoTOCTXjBQ1Zs/edit?usp=sharing.