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FOI joins Bloxberg – the consortium for the advancement of science and blockchain

Created: 19.10.2022

The Faculty of Organization and Informatics (FOI), University of Zagreb, situated in the City of Varaždin, is the first institution of higher education in the Republic of Croatia to join BLOXBERG. It is a secure global blockchain established by a consortium of leading research organizations to provide scientists with decentralized services worldwide.

 

ABOUT THE CONSORTIUM

Bloxberg is an international blockchain dedicated to science. Its infrastructure is based on the open-source Ethereum blockchain. Researchers can leverage Bloxberg to create a transparent footprint of their work without revealing its content. Starting with a research data certification system, the Bloxberg infrastructure will be extended and enhanced with tools and myriad decentralized applications (dAPPs) as research needs grow and shift. The Bloxberg blockchain was founded in February 2019 through a Consortium of eleven research institutions from ten different countries and initiated by the Max Planck Digital Library.

PROOF OF AUTHORITY

Instead of the Proof of Work consensus mechanism, the Proof of Authority mechanism is used. This approach ensures that all validator nodes within the Bloxberg infrastructure are executed by members of the Consortium. At the same time, a publicly known identity can be ensured since all are members of a scientific organization or research institution. The goal of the Bloxberg blockchain is the development of scientific applications with the help of DLT technology. The infrastructure enables the application of decentralized services for scientific systems. The most important use cases in science for using a block-based system are: data verification, guaranteed protection of intellectual property rights, exchange of research results, peer review, publication of articles, etc. „Blockchain is an essential technology with many potential applications. The academic community should use it to support research and speed up innovations. This blockchain can stamp every step in the research process. With such an approach, scientists can experiment and share their results without complicated and expensive intellectual property protection procedures. That is why we joined the Bloxberg initiative, and I hope this is just the beginning of outstanding cooperation across many scientific fields“ – says Full Prof. Neven Vrček, Ph.d. from FOI.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES

By joining, FOI becomes a member of this ground-breaking, secure research platform, with the aim to build truly global, decentralized, and autonomous services to advance science. The Bloxberg Consortium aims to foster collaboration among the global scientific community, empowering researchers with robust, autonomous services that transcend institutional boundaries. For example, with consented transactions on the Bloxberg infrastructure, research claims do not need to be limited to one institution alone but can be confirmed by the whole trusted network. 

Find out more about Bloxberg here.