We had the opportunity to speak with Kaitlin Thaney at the ALPSP Manchester Conference, where she shared her inspiring journey into the world of open access, open infrastructure, and scholarly communication. Kaitlin’s work is driven by a deep commitment to making knowledge more accessible and fostering sustainable, inclusive research ecosystems .Throughout our conversation, she provided valuable insights into how her current role with Invest in Open Infrastructure is helping to transform the research landscape, addressing the key challenges and opportunities in promoting open systems.

Q: Can you tell us about your journey into the world of open access, open infrastructure, and scholarly communication? What motivated you to focus on these areas?

A: I’m the executive director of Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI). My journey into this space actually began in the early 2000s. I started as a journalist focusing on First Amendment and Freedom of the Press issues. Around that time, I became involved with education technology through colleagues at MIT, working on early initiatives that supported the early days of DSpace, one of the longest-running institutional repositories developed by MIT Libraries and HP.

What really motivated me to focus on open access and infrastructure came from a personal experience early on. A close friend was diagnosed with a rare degenerative disease and struggled to access the right doctors and treatments. This experience highlighted the importance of open collaboration in research. Early on as we were building out the science program at Creative Commons, rare disease research organizations were among the first to embrace the open, collaborative methods we were developing, and that inspired me to dedicate my career to helping build the open infrastructure that supports equitable access to knowledge and research. 

Around 2005, a colleague introduced me to Creative Commons, an organization known for its less restrictive copyright licenses. They were exploring how those principles could be applied to science, especially open access and open data. Our team was part of the early work to craft ways to share data on the web as openly as possible, work that  included developing the CC0 public domain dedication license. We were also part of early conversations about Open Science, which had long roots in disciplines like physics, computer science, environmental science, and genomics.

The work extended beyond just access to content. We focused on access to data, materials, code, cell lines, and the cyber infrastructure needed to support all of this. After several years at Creative Commons, I moved to London to help launch Digital Science, where we aimed to apply open science principles and build technical solutions to challenges researchers were facing, scaling those solutions into broader products.

I later returned to the U.S. to join the Mozilla Foundation, where I built their first science program and oversaw multiple initiatives. Before IOI, I worked with the Wikimedia Foundation, helping launch their first endowment, raising over $60 million initially, to support sustainability for open knowledge.

Q: What are some of the biggest challenges you are facing right now?

A: It’s not just about securing funding, though that’s a huge part. We’re constantly reaching out to different funding sources, thinking broadly beyond traditional philanthropies, governments, and institutions. This really needs to be an “everyone at the table” moment.

Beyond funding, we also focus on how systems get embedded within the research ecosystem. Sustainability doesn’t just mean who’s using the infrastructure, but also who’s actively contributing to its development and maintenance. Are the research communities that depend on these underlying systems actually gaining access? Where are the gaps? How can we help close those gaps?

It’s a big mission on both the funding and adoption sides. If we focus only on funding, we risk replicating the same problems that keep infrastructure stuck in a cycle of struggle. We take a more holistic, nuanced approach.

We’ve also raised over $4.58 million for a collective fund that supports large-scale implementation projects and expansion of open infrastructure. Raising that amount for a small, 10-person organization has been very difficult, especially since we began this fundraising effort in 2023, when the world looked quite different.

We’re mindful not to divert funds from direct research support to communities, as addressing scarcity is central to our mission. We aim to improve the evidence base around infrastructure funding and help institutions make informed decisions by providing practical and value-based information about infrastructure options.

Q: In your experience, what are the key factors that encourage institutions and researchers to adopt open access practices?

A: In some cases, adoption of open access practices is discipline-specific. For example, physics has long embraced preprints and early sharing through arXiv, where researchers publish early work to signal their focus and invite collaboration.. Similarly, fields like genomics or projects such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey developed open practices out of necessity due to limited data access and instruments. Environmental and climate research have also increasingly adopted open methods because of how data is collected and shared. Over nearly 20 years working in this space, we’ve seen generational shifts with instructors, trainers, and research software engineers embedding open access into training and mentorship. Institutional mandates for open access, once rare, have become common, extending to funders and governments globally. This growth includes stronger advocacy, formal training programs, and ingrained institutional practices.

In the last two years, we developed a tool called Infra Finder cataloguing over 110 infrastructures to help institutions comply with public access policies seen in the U.S. (Nelson memo), G7, EU Council, UNESCO, and others. These policies emphasize building knowledge infrastructure to share publicly funded content, articles, data, and materials. Recently, the NIH issued a request for information on reasonable cost thresholds related to article processing charges (APCs) and data sharing costs. Our team, funded by the National Science Foundation, researched these costs, which are highly contested regarding affordability and market scaling, and vary by discipline due to data size differences.

Q: How can community involvement and stakeholder engagement improve the sustainability and inclusivity of scholarly publishing?

A: That’s a great question. I’d highlight this especially at the infrastructure level. Many tools in scholarly publishing, particularly those focused on open access, depend heavily on community engagement and representation. Whether it’s governance, contributing to the code base, or user involvement, this needs to be intentional and thoughtful. Key points include: who you engage, how you reach out, and how you include diverse stakeholders and geographies in the design process. It’s important to have active, two-way feedback loops that ensure scholarly publishing meets the needs of its users. Unfortunately, community engagement is often the first area cut when budgets tighten, but it’s vital for staying aligned with users and market shifts. 

This is especially challenging in open access, where the market is still emerging. We’re simultaneously creating demand and advising how to meet it. It’s a frustrating space because you’re selling a vision of what could be, not what currently exists. Open access has dramatically shifted in the last 15 years, from being seen as a threat to becoming a major financial driver for big publishers.

Community engagement helps keep the focus on why and who the system serves. Profit and shareholder motives often conflict with community needs, leading to problems like paper mills and research integrity issues. Would these issues persist if resources were shared more equitably and the priority was service rather than profit?

When it comes to research integrity, debates around the value of articles, preprints, or ditching journals entirely are ongoing. Ultimately, decisions about what counts as valid research should serve the broader mission of scientific discovery and knowledge sharing, not narrow interests.

Q: Over the past year, with the rise of AI and increased access to open information, do you think there’s been a noticeable influx of low-quality or poorly conducted research?

A: It’s interesting. I’m not sure it’s just about an influx of bad research, people have always found ways to game the system. At the root of it is a deeply flawed incentive structure. When promotion and tenure are still tied to where you publish, it creates pressure that encourages quantity over quality. Some organizations are trying to change this—like DORA, CoARA, and others working on research assessment reform. There’s also ongoing work to reform the UK’s REF (Research Excellence Framework). But when job security is scarce, and funding is limited, people will often look for shortcuts rather than solutions. It’s like pointing a firehose at a leaky pipe, you’re just amplifying a broken system.

Instead of asking whether more research is being produced, we should ask how we’re filtering and assessing it. Yes, AI tools can lead to more papers being generated quickly, but that also opens the door to developing better ways to detect patterns, assess quality, and surface credible work.

As a bit of an aside, it reminds me of Wikipedia in the early 2000s. Back then, people were just starting to copy and paste content from Wikipedia into their school papers, sometimes without even fixing the formatting. It was a signal that access had changed, but our systems for evaluating and integrating that access hadn’t caught up yet. We’re seeing echoes of that now in scholarly publishing.

Q: How can publishers and academic institutions better address issues of equity and diversity in research dissemination?

A: For me, it comes down to intentionality and thoughtfulness in every stage of decision-making. Equity and diversity aren’t just about who gets featured in journal articles but about whether communities are being meaningfully engaged, listened to, and represented throughout the entire research and publishing process.

Often, equity efforts are one-directional: institutions decide who they want to include and stop there. But real inclusivity requires ongoing, two-way engagement. Are we embedding community feedback into how tools, platforms, and initiatives are designed? Are we regularly incorporating that feedback into actual change?

For example, although there have been recent disruptions, eLife’s early career researcher group is a good model. They actively engage with their community to ensure their work reflects the lived experiences and needs of those researchers, and they aim for continuous dialogue rather than one-off consultations.

Geographical equity is another important area. We’ve done extensive work in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, and it’s clear that global engagement can’t be limited to just the most visible hubs like Nairobi or Cape Town. While there are practical reasons why activity often clusters in specific regions, like existing infrastructure or business constraints, it can create a skewed view of the landscape. At Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI), we faced this challenge ourselves. While I was based in New York and our steering group included mostly people from North America and Western Europe (with one from Australia), we aimed to be global. Initially, we tried to accommodate different time zones, but we quickly realized that wasn’t enough.

True global engagement meant physically showing up in regions, building local partnerships, conducting region-specific research, and understanding the local context. It’s about creating infrastructure with communities, not just for them and that takes time, intention, and sustained commitment.

Q: How do you envision the relationship between open data, open research, and traditional publishing evolving over the next decade?

A: I believe traditional publishing must evolve and it already is. While some groups still rely on conventional models and communities that are willing to pay for access, the overall market dynamics have shifted significantly. Access to content and data is no longer just a values-based issue, it’s also driven by technological pressures to do more with less.

For example, back in 2007–2008, when we were developing open data initiatives at Creative Commons, we saw major pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline experimenting with open innovation challenges and releasing substantial data sets. Initiatives like Sage Bionetworks, which made data from Merck and Rosetta Inpharmatics accessible, highlighted a growing recognition that openness can accelerate innovation.

These examples show that even traditionally closed industries were recognizing the benefits (often economically driven) of open data. Over the next decade, I expect traditional publishers will need to adapt more fully by integrating open research and data-sharing practices, not just as a matter of principle, but as a practical response to changing technology, economics, and community expectations.

Q: Can you share insights on how open infrastructure can support early-career researchers and underrepresented groups in academia?

A: The key point is that open infrastructure helps remove many barriers that early-career researchers and underrepresented groups face in participating fully in the research ecosystem. While open doesn’t mean free, it significantly lowers costs and provides broader access to essential tools, knowledge, and training that might otherwise be locked behind paywalls or restricted systems.

Open infrastructure is designed not only to fix inefficiencies but to create a more equal playing field, enabling foundational knowledge sharing and offering better entry points for those who might otherwise be excluded. This includes access to research tools, training resources, and platforms for sharing and conducting research.

In essence, open infrastructure supports more equitable participation by breaking down financial, technical, and systemic barriers that often impede early-career and underrepresented researchers.

Q: How can the scholarly community work together to ensure that open access and open infrastructure initiatives are sustainable and impactful in the long term?

A: We began with a largely ideological approach to supporting open access and infrastructure, but over the last five years, we’ve shifted to more pragmatic thinking, exploring alternative models to address funding scarcity and sustainability. Instead of every initiative building a standalone organization, we’re questioning if that model is truly fit for purpose.

At IOI, we want to foster conversations that build trust between commercial and non-profit providers, breaking down barriers that have hindered collaboration. Sustainability means treating infrastructure as a shared public good, like utilities such as water, sanitation, or roads—that require diverse funding partnerships, not just government or philanthropic support.

Given recent geopolitical challenges, we can’t solely rely on government funding. There needs to be a mix of public-private partnerships and shared responsibility to ensure infrastructure remains resilient and accessible, especially  if institutional funding wanes.

Additionally, larger scholarly publishers and commercial entities that benefit from open infrastructure should be expected to contribute back to the community to maintain equitable access.

Sustainability is complex and nuanced. Balancing business motives with the broader goals of open research requires innovative, flexible models, some short-term, some long-term, that support redundancy, fail-safe, and broad participation. Exploring these ideas is where I see the most promise for lasting impact.

More About Kaitlin Thaney

Kaitlin Thaney is the executive director of Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI), a nonprofit initiative dedicated to increasing the investment in and adoption of open systems that research relies on. Her career has been centered around open infrastructure organizations, helping them think strategically about program design, participatory engagement, and sustainability.

Previously she served as the endowment director for the Wikimedia Foundation, where she led development of a fund to sustain the future of Wikipedia and free knowledge. Prior to joining Wikimedia, Thaney directed the program portfolio for the Mozilla Foundation, following her time building the Mozilla Science Lab, a program to serve the open research community. She was on the founding team for Digital Science, where she helped launch and advise programs to serve researchers worldwide, building on her time at Creative Commons, where she crafted legal, technical, and social infrastructure for sharing data on the web.