Jennifer Gibson
Executive Director
Dryad
Karl Benedict, retired, formerly University of Mexico
Dryad hopes to make a valuable contribution to the long-standing questions of how to fund both open infrastructure and research data repositories with the introduction of a new fee structure this spring. An 18 year-old open-source platform for publishing research data from across disciplines, Dryad enjoys support from academic societies and publishing organizations as well as academic and research libraries. However, even over 18 years it proved elusive to define a fee structure that covered the growing and changing costs of the organization and made sense for all of our community partners. In 2024 Dryad convened a multi stakeholder group to advise on the development of fees. The outcome is a model that separates annual service fees from data publication charges and supports the expansion of service from Dryad while incentivizing adoption and reducing complexity for investing institutions and other partners. The new approach was introduced in May, with all fees and available discounts being made open and transparent on the Dryad website. Customized deals will not be offered under the new scheme to promote transparency and equity among partners and reduce administration for the small nonprofit. While the fees have strong support from the advisory group and the Dryad Board they will next be tested with current Dryad partner institutions whose contracts renew in January 2026 and then with the broader community who will decide whether to adopt Dryad as their data solution. This project update shares the experience in developing the fee structure, the basis for decisions, and the goals.
