Why good science is key to good technology

Science and technology rely on each other. Scientific progress fuels new technologies, while better technology helps science advance. But science faces a replication crisis. Many studies seem exciting but can’t be repeated. This slows discovery and delays innovation. If we want faster progress, we must fix how science is done and shared. Platforms like DeSci Publish, offer a way to make research more transparent, reproducible and openly accessible, helping restore trust in science and accelerate meaningful innovation.

In scientific research, transparency and reproducibility are essential for building trust and advancing knowledge. However, there are often no clear requirements to include the data, code, or materials needed to verify or replicate findings. This lack of standardisation makes it difficult to assess the reliability of studies and can result in repeated work, ultimately slowing progress and increasing costs.

When science is strong and reliable, it can lead to real breakthroughs. But when research fails to hold up, it spreads misinformation, misguides future work and delays vital solutions.

Still, technology has helped science in recent years. DNA sequencing, for example, used to be slow and costly. Now, it's fast and cheap. This shift has transformed genetics and led to better medical care. Big datasets let researchers run larger, better studies. These have led to strong, repeatable results. Such advances were only possible thanks to tech that improved with earlier scientific work.

Technology also grows from science. The Human Genome Project, finished 25 years ago, pushed forward DNA sequencing. Two teams raced to decode the full human genome and their efforts sparked big advances. Sequencing got cheaper faster than computer chips did under Moore’s law.

This made large-scale biobanks possible. Projects like the UK Biobank collect health and genetic data from millions. Many are open to researchers worldwide and resulted in a wave of reliable new findings.

But bad science causes harm. A 2012 Nature article shared that biotech firm Amgen couldn’t replicate nearly 90% of 50 key cancer studies. This set back cancer research, wasted time and hurt trust in top journals. Making science more open helps avoid such issues. Sharing data and code enables others to verify findings and build upon previous work, reducing R&D time and accelerating genuine progress.

True innovation needs both novelty and rigour. Yet the current publishing system often relies on editors’ opinions to judge what’s new. This process is slow and prone to bias.

That’s why we built a machine-learning tool to score novelty in research papers. It tracks content novelty and context novelty and updates over time. With thousands of studies published daily, this tool helps surface the work most likely to matter.

The scores predict future citations better than top journals and help spot real breakthroughs early. We also support platforms where researchers can upload full research outputs. Crowdfunding could also help fund replications, giving science and industry a low-cost way to check key findings.

At DeSci Labs, we aim to make science more robust and novel. This strengthens the science-tech loop and helps real progress thrive. Join the movement to fix science at its foundation.