Vision Of Collaborative Research Platform

With the proliferation of global collaboration platform the World Wide Web, we need to direct research in the right direction – one that centers on solving real problems collaboratively, not just publication of random research papers (for getting promoted!).

A collaborative research platform could define substantial problems, each of them, if solved, can bring about revolutions, and break the substantial problems into manageable pieces, i.e., sub-problems and the sub-problems into even more manageable pieces, i.e., sub-sub-problems. Individual researchers or research groups could pick and work on manageable problems that match their abilities and interests and publish and share results on the platform. Researchers could define new problems, define new sub-problems, suggest improvements and changes on the platform.

A research paper could be co-authored by hundreds or even thousands of researchers scattered throughout the world.

For example, a problem could be “Codify Biology to the point that you can control biological processes and organisms”. The problem should have measurable, quantifiable goals. This problem could be divided into more manageable pieces and then into even more manageable pieces until they are solvable by individual researchers or research groups.

This would help the entire scientific community move forward towards practical goals much more rapidly.