ELIXIR-CONVERGE D1.2 Survey of business models

Growth of omics disciplines has significantly increased the researchers' demand for support in the field of data management. It follows that long term sustainability of existing data management services and platforms is of critical importance to the research community.

The ELIXIR-CONVERGE Task 1.3-Business model aims at investigating long-term sustainability strategies for supporting the provision of said data management/data stewardship services. In order to achieve this goal, the authors reviewed existing business models that were currently implemented by the ELIXIR Nodes.

Data collection was performed by means of on-line surveys and interviews, investigating how DM/DS services are delivered and how they are financially supported.

The current investigation was performed at different time points along the implementation of the ELIXIR-CONVERGE action, allowing the authors to sketch an analysis of the delivered services, and their financial sustainability in a two years time frame.

The investigation revealed how in almost all the Nodes, the delivery of data management services depends on public subsidies, usually by means of a mix of institutional, national and European Union/European Commission funded projects.

Likewise, the current work highlighted how Nodes are exploring new sustainability strategies and models where part of the costs are recovered from final users.

Considering the gradient of public subsidisation and user/customer contribution, the authors of the current report characterised the implemented sustainability strategies under three (plus one) business models: Free, Freemium, Pay per use (Pay per use +).

Although a growing number of Nodes are moving towards exploring and implementing sustainable business models, our investigation highlights how in most cases the resulting strategies can be considered only experimental. In several instances transactions are only virtual and cost recovery often never happens in full.

The main outcome of the effort presented in the current document is the definition of a portfolio of fact sheets describing all the alternative funding strategies other than the full public subsidisation implemented by the Nodes: the Business Model Catalog.