Can crypto solve the current problems of scientific research?

Years ago, I decided to study at the university because I wanted to become a researcher. I’ve always been fascinated by analyzing data and discovering something new, then I understood that it’s pretty impossible to make a living out of it in my country, at least in public institutions.

Scientific research has often the same problems worldwide:

Lack of funding: many promising studies are alt because they run out of money. Funding often goes to trending and more famous topics, leaving many interesting but niche fields unfunded. Also, even if funds are allocated to research, you cannot be 100% sure that they will be used for that; this is a problem for charity campaigns too. Biased publication choices: usually scientific journals only publish “positive studies”, namely studies that found a certain effect and don’t publish studies that didn’t find it (i.e. if a treatment is effective, it gets published, if the same treatment isn’t found to be effective in another study, that article isn’t published). This can lead to falsifying data in order to get the article published, as researchers’ paychecks often depend on it.

Now, can blockchain fix these?

There are currently some new-born projects in the DeSci (Decentralized Science) space that aim to do that:

VitaDAO is a decentralized organization that collects projects from every researcher in the world (famous professors or simple students) and distributes funding to the most promising ones. The best feature in my opinion is that projects are still reviewed by a court of experts, but the community has the final word. Molecule is a platform that lets you invest in specific research, in particular in the medical field. It’s kind of like lending money to researchers and earning interest when they discover something. Data Lake collects high-quality medical data from around the world in order to give researchers full access to that. This in particular tries to solve the problem of companies analyzing data for their research that aren’t public and therefore falsifiable.

Regardless of these specific projects, I think that blockchain can actually make scientific research more democratic, decentralized of especially less biased. Fundraising can become easier thanks to blockchain and people can be sure that their money goes exactly to the desired entity.

I would love to hear the opinions of people who actually work in the research field on this. Unfortunately, I gave up my plan to be a scientist for now, but maybe blockchain will make the future brighter for younger students.