Call for Proposals: IOI Fund for Network Adoption

The Fund prioritizes projects that demonstrate a clear understanding of local needs, foster community engagement, promote universal access and participation, and contribute to addressing critical global challenges.

Objectives

• Increased access to open data and content: Facilitating greater access to research data and content for researchers and institutions within participating networks. This includes supporting activities that increase the adoption, implementation, and scaling of infrastructure solutions that enhance the creation, discovery, accessibility, and reusability of research outputs.
• Advancement of collaborative research on critical global issues: Supporting research networks that contribute to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by addressing pressing global challenges, such as climate, agriculture, health, and sustainable development.
• Sustainable and community-driven infrastructure: Promoting the adoption and use of open data and content infrastructure solutions in a manner that is sustainable, community-driven, and responsive to local needs.
• Fair and accessible research ecosystems: Fostering an environment where everyone has a fair chance to participate and contribute, regardless of background and geographical location.
• Strengthening networks as a provider of shared infrastructure: Supporting networks in becoming stronger providers of valuable infrastructure services to their members and to the wider research community.

Funding Information

• The IOI Fund for Network Adoption envisions providing US$1-1.5M per funded network over a period of 2-3 years, with projects starting between October 2025 and February 2026, contingent on alignment with proposed budgets and project roadmaps.

Eligible Costs

• Software and technology, e.g. software subscription, compute costs.
• Equipment and supplies, e.g. costs for mobile data and power.
• Fees/salaries for staff/consultants, e.g. contract developers, event facilitators, legal support. In the description, please provide hourly rates and number of anticipated hours.
• Travel and event costs. In the description, please provide the expected number of team members/others travelling, and to where (which event and/or location).
• Honoraria, e.g. for interviewees, speakers, and working group members.
• Accessibility services, e.g. translators, closed-captioning, transcribing.
• Indirect costs/overhead: the maximum indirect/overhead costs that can be requested is 10% of direct costs.

Eligible Projects

• Demonstrate a clear, deep understanding of the needs and challenges faced by the research communities served, or can be served, by the network.
• Present a well-defined and feasible project plan with clear objectives, activities, timeline, and a realistic and well-justified budget.
• Have a strong team with the necessary skills and experience to successfully implement the project.
• Demonstrate a commitment to open principles and practices.
• Will maximally benefit from IOI’s strategic support and guidance, and from peer-to-peer learning from other participating networks and partners.
• Have the potential to generate significant impact on shared adoption of open infrastructure and the advancement of open science.

Eligible Activities

• Improving usability of existing infrastructure to expand reach and/or use.
• Staffing, capacity building, and support for governance for the shared infrastructure and/or scoped project.
• Technical activities, including roll-out of new systems, upgrades, migrations from legacy systems, maintenance, and implementation.
• Adapting existing infrastructure solutions to facilitate use by local research communities, e.g. translating and contextualizing user interfaces and documentation, developing low-bandwidth/offline support.
• Connecting and integrating with core systems to drive usability.
• Designing and implementing safeguards, including privacy and security patches, data protection policies, and other legal provisions.
• Organizing events, workshops, and other activities to promote the use or shared maintenance of the infrastructure.
• Collecting and analyzing data, and the implementation of data collection and analysis systems, to assess the impact of the implementation and scaling of infrastructures.

Ineligible Activities

• Activities that contradict the mission and values of IOI.
• Activities that violate the terms and conditions of a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, including but not limited to partisan political activities.
• Activities that discriminate with regard to race, sex, education, ethnicity, socio-economic status, religion, ability/disability, sexual orientation, gender self-identification, age, country of origin, first language, marital status, or citizenship.
• Activities that involve money laundering, terror, and kidnapping.

Eligibility Criteria

• The (lead) applicant must be a national or international research network that meets the following criteria:
  • Network membership: Network members must be institutions and/or research-performing organizations (RPOs), networks of institutions and/or RPOs (e.g. a regional research and education network whose members are national research and education networks, whose members are institutions), or national/regional research agencies.
    • Networks with only individual memberships are not eligible;
    • Networks with multiple types of memberships that include organizational memberships are eligible, but only the organizational members are taken into account when evaluating the number and geography criteria below.
  • Number of members: National networks (whose members are mainly based in one country) must serve at least 10 institutions/RPOs; international networks must have members in at least 5 different countries.
  • Membership geography: The majority of network members must be based in Africa, North America, and/or Latin America.
  • Registered location: Networks CANNOT be based/registered in Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, or Cuba. The US and European governments have sanctions on financial relationships with organizations and people in these countries. As a result, their banks and financial service providers have wholly prohibited any payments to these countries. With uncertainty about how sanctions will impact this Fund, and the inability to provide payment, they cannot support awards to regions under these sanctions.
  • Fiscal relationship with members: Network must have a fiscal relationship with its members, e.g. members pay a fee to maintain their membership, or the network distributes/cascades funds to members.
  • Able to accept funding from a US-based charity: Network must be able to accept funding from a US-based 501(c)3 organization and manage its distribution to third-party partners and vendors as needed.
  • Point of contact: Network must provide a point of contact who will commit to reporting back on the progress and impact of the award to the IOI team.
  • Language: Network core staff must be able to communicate in English at working proficiency.
  • Current IOI employees, contractors, and clients are not permitted to apply.
  • Applicants must abide by local laws that apply to their activities based on their residence.

For more information, visit IOI.