Description of the Five Research Streams

IMPORTANT UPDATE: The project has closed applications

Status: draft, subject to change.

0. The function of general assistant coordinator of research
This position is the project management function that insures that the research is delivered on time, in qualitative condition, and in the formats necessary for the project.

I. Research coordinator and assistant on enhancing Human Capabilities

 * open education, human talent and capacities building; cultural issues; group faciltation; culture change / innovation and science ; arts and meaning-making activities

This position will coordinate the research into open education, open science and scholarship; the subjective capacities needed for commons-oriented cultural change; collective and group facilation to increase cooperative capacity; the stimulation of innovation and invention amongst Ecuadorian citizens.

Tasks:
 * Developing policy documents for Open Access, Open Science, Open Education, Open Arts, Free Culture and Open Media
 * Proposals for developing human talent capable of co-creative cooperation and open innovation
 * Proposal for developing a cadre of Group Facilitators to develop social cooperation capabilities in Ecuador
 * Investigating neo-traditional possibilities: how can the traditions of the Indigenous People of Ecuador contribute to a flowering of Ecuadorian society

Knowledge Education and Knowledge Society

 * 1) Author sustainability: remuneration, development, public investment policies, etc.
 * 2) Publishing mediums: repositories, etc.
 * 3) Create and distribute homework, tools and indicators about knowledge and its benefits in teacher planning.
 * 4) Copyleft in textbooks and collaborative and diverse curriculum develop at the national level.
 * 5) Management, facilitation and certification of non-formal education and non-academic knowledge.

Free Culture

 * 1) Licenses and collecting societies.
 * 2) Democratizing Culture
 * 3) Sustainable models for cultural producers
 * 4) Areas: resolve problems in the previous points according to area of production (film, music, literature, art, etc.).
 * 5) Publishing and distribution cultural infrastructure: repositories, etc.

Science Policies

 * 1) Adjustment evaluation indicators of the results, and systems and scientific processes towards the open commons of knowledge productive structure.
 * 2) Open Access and Open Data in Science: Publication and repositories of results and investigation processes, rethinking all scientific communication.
 * 3) Development of collaborative scientific production systems at the national level.
 * 4) Architecture of the investigation system: investigation groups and projects, networks, evaluation agencies, events, institutions, etc.

II. Research coordinator and assistant on commons-oriented productive capacities

 * enhancement of productive capacity through open design commons, distributed manufacturing, sustainable agriculture; and open machining ; energy

This position will coordinate the research into the methods and means to increase the social productivity of agricultural, industrial and service productivity through knowledge sharing, distributed means of production, open and shared machinery, and the mutualization of the support infrastructures for production. The research will look at the ecological and social externalities of production, positive and negative, and look into the ways to stimulate the creation of maximum positive externalities that benefit the common good.

Tasks:
 * Developing a Open Agriculture policy document: (protecting the seed commons; protecting biodiversity, open knowledge for enhancing agricultural productivity, sustaining a open machining industry; broadband internet infrastructures for rural areas; IT training in rural areas)
 * Developing a Global Village strategy: strategies to enhance the connectivity, learning capabilites and cultural and material productive capacities of rural villages
 * Open Design Commons for Industry: Sectoral Policy Document
 * Policies to support the development Open Hardware centers, Hackerspaces and Makerplaces, Co-working centers, FabLabs for the creation of new skills
 * Policy Support for Open Design Commons for Distributed Manufacturing (open machining)
 * Strategies for Building a Network of Microfactories
 * Proposals for a Internet of Renewable Energy production which can free Ecuador of its dependence on primary sector exports
 * Construction a Domestic Industry based on open knowledge innovation
 * A strategy for Open Commercialisation and Policy Support for New Enterpreneurs

Territorialization of Cognitive Work

 * 1) Local knowledge economy: knowledge and infrastructure from and for communities.
 * 2) Urbanism and knowledge society.
 * 3) Space models of cognitive work (co-working, cybercafés, cognitive cooperatives, etc.).

Energy

 * 1) Distributed networks of clean energy
 * 2) Integrate the public network with civil society networks

Immaterial, Industrial, Bio/Nano Technologies and Biodiversity Commons

 * 1) Industrial patent alternatives: towards an open design for local industries and self-management.
 * 2) Biodiversity and the rights of the Pachamama and natural heritage: defense against harm to Nature’s genetic and biotechnological wealth.
 * 3) Health and the pharmaceutical industry.

III. Research coordinator and assistant into Social Infrastructure and Institutional Innovation

 * legal and institutional frameworks (includes value accounting, new corporate and ethical economy formats) / policy-making

This position will coordinate the research into the rules and norms of open and commons oriented value creation; look into the institutional framework and support that is needed by the actors and citizens; including possible reform of the economic and monetary systems, the legal forms for corporations and ethical economy entities; new forms of accounting for value creation and externalities; and measurement and reward systems for contributory value creation; in other words, this part of the research looks at the invisible social infrastructures. The research will look at policies that are need to support such a transition, and at new governance and property formats that will need to be stimulated.

Tasks


 * A proposed Integrative Framework for Open Policy Making
 * Institutional Innovations for Commons Governance
 * Institutional Innovations for the Solidarity Economy and Cooperative Production based on Open Commons (Open Company Formats)
 * Measures to strengthen a commons-friendly Ethical Economy
 * Measures for Monetary Reform:
 * A framework of national monetary sovereignity in the context of dollarisation
 * A legal framework for complementary local and regional currencies
 * Policy Measures to Reform the traditional corporate sector in the context of sustainablity (ecological externalities) and social justice
 * Value metrics in a collaborative economy: increasing socially just rewards for the contributive economy
 * Commons-supportive Taxation Policy
 * Reform of Governance to insure wider stakeholder input
 * Reform of Property Law to insure a transition from extractive to generative ownership forms

Open Data, Transparency and ICT in Public Administration

 * 1) Accessibility and open forms of public production
 * 2) Data structure for public administration: open data and linked data
 * 3) Digital management and governance models (e-government)

IV. Research coordinator and assistant into open technical infrastructures

 * open technical infrastructures, privacy, security, data ownership, digital rights

This position will coordinate the research into the rules and norms of openness and the commons orientation of digital infrastructures (open definitions, licensing, IP regime); and important aspects of digital usage such as privacy, security; individual and collective rights of expression through digital media.

Tasks:


 * Insuring Privacy Protection
 * Limiting the dependence on centralized infrastructures under foreign control ; supporting the construction of more autonomous distributed networks
 * Limits on the Surveillance of Citizens through Digital Rights
 * Instituting a Right of Personal Data Ownership
 * Protecting Network Neutrality

Hardware and Connectivity: Sustainability and sovereignty over technological infrastructure

 * 1) Hardware: Free and sustainable hardware, buying criteria, technology market problems, hardware sovereignty, recycling, etc.
 * 2) Connectivity: It is necessary to distinguish between internal and external networks--namely, institutional/community/citizen connectivity and global connectivity (neutral points, the UNASUR ring, trans-oceanic cables, satellites, etc.), as well as free networks (see http://guifi.net).
 * 3) Energy: self-managed energy systems for rural areas and data-centers, etc.

Free Software

 * 1) Education: beginning with the base: the street, schools, television, videogames, social networks, cybercafés and phone centers.
 * 2) Implementation: migration programs for public administration, migration facilitation for associations, people, businesses, etc.
 * 3) Production and development: obligatorily display in public places the current developments in public administration.
 * 4) Sovereignty and autonomy policies: for example obligatorily be able to buy computers without operating systems, ie. without Windows and with the cost of Windows discounted from the price.

Cyber Security

 * 1) Technological sovereignty, cyber-defense and national security programs
 * 2) Social empowerment for cyber-security
 * 3) Certificates and public administration.

V. Research coordinator and assistant on the physical infrastructures of collective life

 * physical infrastructures: housing / transportation / urban policies

This position wil coordinate the research into physical infrastructures such as housing, transportation, physical security, and urban, regional and national policies that can promote the sustainable extension of such infrastructures to enable the good living. This research will look at collaborative consumption and other forms of mutualization of infrastructure.

Tasks:
 * Towards a Housing Commons: keeping housing affordable through anti-speculative ownership and governance formats
 * Policies for promoting the Urban Commons
 * Promoting Sharing Infrastructures and Practices on the Urban, Regional and National Level