TLDR
The Institute for Research and Theory Methodologies (RTM) is an American non-profit organization (501c3) founded in 2021 to help promote research and scholarship. This proposal seeks $9,990 for a three-year sponsorship for RTM to create a Research Hub for Virtual Organizations and Communities and the world’s first peer-reviewed, open access DAO-related journal (official name TBD). As a sponor, the benefit to CityDAO could be enormous – leading scholars, government think tanks and research institutions with huge communities around the world would be introduced to CityDAO. RTM will create and run the journal. We will benefit from its marketing and advertising CityDAO.
How would this benefit CityDAO?
Simply put, this is the best form of marketing that CityDAO could possibly ask for when it comes to recruiting researchers and institutions. Establishing CityDAO as a sponsor for scholarship on DAOs opens us up to an enormous potential group of citizens and participants that we could not possibly find within the web3 ecosystem. The people reached by this project will be highly-educated adults and industry leaders, those with the funds and the understanding to make real contributions to CityDAO rather than those who are just motivated by the NFT prices and the hope of a quick profit. In addition, we can be assured of quality because this journal is being run by RTM, a group of well-published scholars and academic professors with over twenty years’ experience.
What is a Peer-Reviewed Journal?
In the world of legitimate academic research, only peer-reviewed journals matter. This is a harsh but true statement. DAOs operate in a world of blogs, mirror articles, YouTube videos, Twitter posts and various centralized servers. While they serve a purpose, none of these have true validity in the world of scholarship, research and government funding. A peer-reviewed journal is the gold standard.
Peer-reviewed journals publish studies that have been reviewed by academics, in order to create a body of knowledge that is accepted by professors, universities, and institutions around the world. While web3 has produced an endless waterfall of information, very little of it has been rigorously studied and published. As one of the most legitimate DAOs in existence, CityDAO is perfectly poised to sponsor a journal on DAOs. While there are very few journals devoted to blockchain and AI, there is nothing yet devoted to DAOs.
It is extremely complicated, bureaucratic, and time-consuming to create a peer-reviewed journal. It is similar to creating a university; it cannot be done by the average person, which is why this is such a tremendous opportunity. I have worked with RTM for over a year on DAO-related research and this opportunity would put us in contact with many of the most highly placed individuals who are studying DAOs. It would put CityDAO’s name into the minds of highly funded government and research institutions around the world.
But this isn’t web3, is it?
Much of the initial hype and notoriety regarding CityDAO was due to a single blogpost by Vitalik Buterin and the subsequent purchase of citizenship NFTs by a few celebrities. This was followed by news stories in traditional media sources, such as the Wall Street Journal, and a TED talk by CityDAO’s founder.
Since then, despite two years of development, working on various projects, hosting events and contests, participating in conferences, teaching university courses, maintaining partnerships and collaborations, running a consistent podcast, publishing twitter posts and monthly newspapers, nothing has significantly drawn people to CityDAO. Our community has not strengthened. Our Discord server is not an exciting place.
The bear market could be blamed, and may have contributed, but a possible issue is that we have only targeted the web3 community. In web3, while some people care about ideals such as decentralization, transparency and disrupting traditional paradigms, many people only care about NFT prices. However, a focus on price without value will never flourish.
One thing we have learned is that people must be attracted to our ideas and to our community, or else no one will want to join or participate, whether we buy one office or twenty. RTM is presenting an opportunity to join forces with researchers from around the world who study DAOs, each of whom brings with them a wide audience. This is a one-time opportunity.
Background to RTM
The Institute for Research and Theory Methodologies (RTM) was founded in 2021 by Dr. Kara Vander Linden, who has been a research professor for 20 years, working at Saybrook University in California for almost 12 years. The purpose of her organization is to train, mentor, support and connect students, faculty and researchers worldwide. As a relatively new organization, RTM is willing to partner with a smaller organization like CityDAO to focus on research about the DAO space. I have personally worked with RTM and Kara for over a year (unpaid), and have found the organization to be well-organized and run.
How would the funds be used?
Journal Fees: $1500 per year. For three years, that would be $4500.
Operating Costs: $1000 per year. For three years, that would be $3000.
Honorariums: (given to Editor-in-Chief, Assistant Editors, Copy Editors) $2990
Given that this is funding for a three-year project, this project may seek funding from other sources in addition to CityDAO.
If this passes, the funds will be transferred into a 3/5 multisig wallet controlled by two members of CityDAO and three members of RTM. All expenditures will be documented.
Schedule
From the time of this CIP passing, it will take approximately 6 months to get the research hub and journal platform set up, establish an ISBN number for the journal, handle administration, recruit and train peer reviewers. Then a call for articles will be put out, which will go through the peer review process. It would be approximately one year before the first edition is published, which will be properly ranked as an official academic journal. These steps are critical for the long-term success of this project.