SCOSS Application Form 2023

Please submit this in a word-processed document, e.g. MS Word, OpenOffice, WordPerfect and in PDF.  You may submit in both your native language and in English or just in English.

Please provide letters of support to supplement your application.
Template endorsements are not appreciated and please only from partners you work with.

Please send your application to info@scoss.org by 14 April 2023, 5pm CEST

 Please note that questions marked with * are weighted more highly in the evaluation than others.

1.    General

1.1.   Service name Include full name, acronym and URL:

1.2.   Name of organisation operating the service. Incl. acronym and URL:

1.3.   Legal status and country indicating not for profit status:
Please append proof of status with your Application

1.4.   Short description of the service. What does it do and who does it serve? Please also included the country of the geographical home of the service:

1.5.   Year of establishment:

1.6.   Intentions for funding. In brief, describe your need for funding: *

2.    Value of the service to the Open Access or Open Science Community

2.1.   How does this service fit into the Open Science landscape? Describe the service's general value to the Open Science / Open Access Community. How can you demonstrate your value as opposed to competing services?*

2.2.   Describe the service's general value to the Open Science / Open Access Community and how it fulfills an international need. Also describe how far the infrastructure fits into a key area of importance to serve a broad Open Access and Open Science need as opposed to a specific disciplinary need.

2.3.   Describe the benefits of your service for specific stakeholder groups. Also explain any user engagement activities. Include key endorsements from/for any of the following: *

2.3.1 Funders
2.3.2 Research institutions
2.3.3 Libraries
2.3.4 Researchers / Authors
2.3.5 Research managers
2.3.6 Repository networks
2.3.7 Publishers
2.3.8 The public, society and/or citizen scientists
2.3.9 Other
2.4    How will SCOSS funding institutions be able to contribute feedback to the ongoing development and delivery of your infrastructure/service?

3.    Technical details

3.1.   Technical relevance. Describe the hardware and software infrastructure, e.g. machines, location, redundancy, backup/failover arrangements, comments on robustness, load management, sustainability. Database(s) used, software, security. How far do you follow open standards, to what extent is your code open source and what efforts do you take to interoperate with others?*:

3.2.   Provide user data that demonstrates impact and significance.  E.g. Daily active users/unique users per month and by geographic region (and country where possible), and API usage or harvesting by geographical distribution from 2022. Please also provide us with information on the target for your unique users per month for 2024. *

3.3.   Do you use volunteers? How far do you rely on them as compared to paid staff, and how do you use them? Please outline this volunteer culture.

3.4.   How do you engage with your community? *

3.5.   Provide information on your customer service, i.e. on your ability to perform, respond to issues of concern, etc. What process is in place and what is the average response time for what kinds of questions?

4.    Costs

4.1.   Total annual operational costs of the previous 2 years. *

Please provide a financial report for 2022 preferably approved by an accountant.
This should include a detailed breakdown of income and expenses, including itemised staff costs, including roles and functions, IT expenses and miscellaneous costs, ie. travel & meetings.

Please also include the number of FTE.

This data will be made public on the SCOSS website

4.2.   Total organisational costs for the 2 years of requested funding. *

Please provide an organisational budget for the 2 years requested for funding (from 2024).
This should include a detailed breakdown of income and expenses, including itemised staff costs, including roles and functions, IT expenses and miscellaneous costs, ie. travel & meetings.
This should also include any amounts of secured funding and/or further expected funding from other sources in each year.

Please also include the planned number of FTE.

This data will be made public on the SCOSS website

If Euros is not your normal currency, please also include all figures in Euros in this overview.

4.3.   Total funding requested. Please indicate your figures in Euros for year1 and year2. Please note that you may not include a target higher than 1 million euros. *
You may request up to 2 years of organisational costs plus 1 year of annual organisational costs (as a reserve for the bank) calculated as an average of the 2 years of organisational costs of year 1 and 2. Re the reserve, see here for more information. I.e. you may submit a request for a total of 3 years.

Please indicate the total of funding requested by SCOSS in Euros in a table format including: year 1 Euros, year 2 Euros, Bank reserve Euros

4.4.   Indicate the % of the total organisational budget requested in 4.3 for your SCOSS target*

5.    Sustainability measures

5.1.   Describe your funding model, i.e. how you source your funds. Provide information on your funding sources, including key revenue streams, and the total % of external funding that currently covers your total expenses.

5.2.   Describe any previous business model history if different and provide a short analysis of what your challenges have been in raising funds.

5.3.   How will the service credit or promote the SCOSS programme? *

5.4.   How will the service drive and support its own SCOSS fund-raising campaign? *

5.5.   How do you intend to become more sustainable after the SCOSS campaign is over? *

5.6.   Describe how the service addresses the Principles for Open Scholarly Infrastructures: * http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1314859

5.7.   Describe how the service addresses the Good Practice Principles for Scholarly Communication Services: https://sparcopen.org/our-work/good-practice-principles-for-scholarly-communication-services

6.    Foresight

Outline your work plan for the coming 2 years for which funding is requested. Please indicate in detail what activities you have planned to substantiate the funding requested. Include a cost breakdown. Please indicate how far funding will cover maintenance costs, and how far it will fund improving and innovating the current service. Describe to what extent you are financially at risk where relevant here. *

7.    Best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA)

Describe scenarios if your application is not successful, i.e. what the service plans are, e.g. reduce operations, close operations, other.

8.    Governance

8.1.   Describe your organisational governance structure. Please describe the organisational governance structure and process – membership and representation, meeting cycle, reporting relationships, decision-making structure, as well any possible role SCOSS might have in your governance. How does your governance structure reflect your user base?

8.2.   How do you expect to adapt your current governance structure in the coming period if successfully recommended by SCOSS? What possible roles would SCOSS contributors have? *

Please note that your Application will be made public on the SCOSS website.
I understand that this will be made public and confirm the above application is correct:

Name (authorised signatory of the service):

Position:

Signed:                                                                                 Dated: