Regional Events Funding

The GOSH Regional Events Funding program is for groups that want to host an event, workshop, conference, or get-together aimed at supporting open science hardware. The main eligibility criteria is that the event must be aligned with the GOSH Manifesto to make open source hardware ubiquitous and with the GOSH’s ethos of inclusiveness.

Applications for round 2 of the program are submitted by responding to this thread (see further instructions below).

If you already submitted an application for Round 1, it will automatically be considered unless you:

• Ask us to no longer consider your application
• post a revised version of your original application here

Applications can target any 3 of the funding tiers, but the reviewers may recommend different funding tiers if accepted.

If you have a question about this funding or a related discussion, please post in this thread!

For general feedback on round 1 applications that can help you in this round, please see and discuss in this other thread!

There is currently limited funding to support open source software/hardware projects, but far less that specifically supports science-related open source hardware.

Therefore, this application is for groups that want to host an event, workshop, conference, or get-together aimed at advancing open science hardware. The main eligibility criteria is that the event must be aligned with the GOSH Manifesto to make open source science hardware ubiquitous and with the GOSH’s ethos of inclusiveness.

TIMELINE FOR ROUND 2 OF 2022 REGIONAL EVENTS FUNDING PROGRAM

Applications open: 8 March 2022
Applications close: end of day 25 March 2022 (UTC-12)
Applicants notified: Mid-April 2022

We expect this to be the final funding round.

FUNDS

The total funding for this Regional Events funding scheme is $99,100 USD, much of which has been awarded during round 1 ($53,550). This means there is still $45,550 left to be awarded for Round 2.

The original source of these funds is a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, currently held by GOSH Inc., a non-profit organization in the United States. However, we - the wider GOSH community - gets to decide how to use these funds.

This money will be awarded to groups applying here to hosting Regional Events, and a small amount is reserved to fund a final meta-event for reviewing how this process went.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

All organizations are eligible to apply as long as their proposed events are aligned with the GOSH code of conduct and ethos. You do not need a previous relationship/involvement with GOSH. Grants can only be given to a legal organization and not to individuals.

To be clear, physical hardware or hardware designs are great, but do not have to be the primary output of the event. If hardware is produced from your event, it must be published in a way that meets the OSHWA Open Source Hardware Definition.

Proposals for virtual, in-person, or hybrid events are welcome.

Sadly, because the funds are held by GOSH Inc. (a United States-based non-profit), the funding cannot legally go to organizations based in a place subject to United States trade embargoes (full list here).

To recap eligibility criteria:

• Organization (not individual)
• Event is aligned with GOSH Manifesto
• Event aligns with GOSH code of conduct and ethos
• Not based in a place the USA has a trade embargo

REVIEW PROCESS

Reviewers

Proposals will be reviewed by the Regional Gathering Funding Distribution Working Group formed under an open call published on the GOSH forum and open to anyone to apply. Once this group of 3 to 7 people (which will include at least one Community Council member) is set by the Community Council, they will select projects based on the eligibility criteria.

If a member of this review panel has a conflict of interest with an application, they will recuse themselves from reviewing said application. We will target having at least 3 reviewers be able to review each application who do not have conflicts of interest.

Selection Process

Only projects that meet the aforementioned eligibility criteria will be granted full evaluation.

Applications will be evaluated on three key aspects.

1. The first is how the event will advance the GOSH Manifesto at the local level. In short, the GOSH Manifesto contains 10 key principles
   • GOSH is accessible
   • GOSH makes science better
   • GOSH is ethical
   • GOSH changes the culture of science
   • GOSH democratizes science
   • GOSH has no high priests
   • GOSH empowers people
   • GOSH has no black boxes
   • GOSH is impactful tools
   • GOSH allows multiple futures for science

Since this is funding for a GOSH regional event (and not just funding for a specific project), several of these principles should be targetted, but not necessarily all of them must be directly targetted for this single event. Your proposal should note which principles of the GOSH manifesto you hope to target in your event.

2. Applications will be reviewed on the broader impacts of this event for the global community concerning the GOSH manifesto. How many people will the event directly impact? What are the indirect impacts? What happens after this event? What documentation, takeaways, lessons, publications, deliverables, or other outputs will come from this event having occurred? How will the persons involved in this regional event continue the ideas or projects encountered at the event?
3. Finally, the feasibility of the project is taken under consideration. For instance have the organizers demonstrated experience in planning and leading events such as these? Does the budget seem reasonable for what their planned actions are? Does the event seem doable considering their declared goals and timeline?

The reviewers will give a numerical rating (1-3, with 3 being best) to each of the review criteria. The reviewers will then meet amongst themselves to evaluate the applications, deliberate, and create a final list of recommendations for funding.

Review Criteria Table

The rubric for evaluating the applications is listed below. These review criteria maybe be subject to further refinement, but we shall note any changes once this is posted.

Final recommendations for funding will be approved by the the Reviewers internally as a group and then sent to the GOSH community council. The Community Council will only intervene if it considers that there are exceptional circumstances.

Next the Reviewers will notify the recommended awardees of their selection, but the final official approval will only come after the grant awarding body (GOSH Inc.) finishes a final due diligence legal review of the awardees which might take a few weeks.

Announcement of the round 2 awardees will happen after the due diligence process is completed.

BUDGET

Based on their needs, applicants can choose to apply for one of these funding options (in United States Dollars (USD)):

• $3000 for smaller regional events
• $6000 for medium regional events requiring more support
• $9910 for larger proposals involving more people, some travel and accommodation costs and local infrastructure needs

To re-iterate, applicants can apply for any of these 3 levels of funding.

Documentation Bonus

In addition, there will be an $800 bonus awarded once the applicant has submitted their post-event documentation output (see responsibilities below).

EVENT CANCELLATION/VIRTUALIZATION

In case an event needs to be cancelled (for instance due to COVID-19 restrictions or other emergencies), we can still supply 10% of the awarded money to help with forms of “virtualizing the event” (if the event was not originally planned as virtual). For instance, a large event that was awarded $9910 but had to cancel can still ask for $991 for help with any alternatives.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Responsibilities of selected event proposals:

• Attend check-ins with the Regional Funding Working group and/or GOSH community Council
• Make a post on the GOSH forum about their event at the conception of the grant
• Post at least one pre-event update on this forum
• Post at least one post-event update on this forum
• Publish at least one mature documentation output that will tangibly benefit the open source community
  • This is broadly defined so be creative. The output can be hardware designs but doesn’t have to be!
  • At least this output (but preferably all outputs) from the event should be shared under an appropriate open source license (i.e. OSHWA-compatible licenses for hardware, free software licenses for software, and CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-SA 4.0 for other types of outputs)

HOW TO APPLY

Timeline

Timeline for applicants for first round:

• 8 March 2022 to end of day 25 March 2022 (UTC-12) - Submit your application
• Mid-April 2022 - Successful applications announced (pending official confirmation from the GOSH non-profit, which currently holds the funds)
• April to 5 November 2022 - Run your event!
• After 5 November 2022 - Submit your primary documentation output to receive the USD $800 bonus.

Application Questions

Please fully answer each of the ten questions below and post your completed application before the deadline as a response to this thread!

1. Name of your organization
2. Reliable email address (or another reliable way of official contact)
3. Tell us about your organization
4. Does your organization have representation for a marginalized demographic due to factors such as, but not limited to, race, ability, place of birth, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class situation or other identification? If so, how?
5. How would your event address GOSH’s values of diversity and inclusion?
6. What is the event about, and what do you want to achieve with it?
7. How will your event contribute to advancing OPEN SCIENCE HARDWARE?
8. How does your event address each item in the review criteria table above?
9. Which of the three levels of funding would you like to apply for? (USD $3000, $6000, or $9910)
10. What is the funding for? Describe your budget. List what you are going to spend it on and how.
11. How will you share the outcomes of this event. What documentation or other outputs will benefit the open science hardware community as a whole? (videos? photos? a how-to or other education materials? innovative hardware designs?)
12. Can you confirm that at least the primary output from your event will be published under an appropriate open source license as described above in this announcement?
13. Are there any conflicts of interest that you wish to declare? (a conflict of interest does not always mean disqualification!)

After you submit your application here, the working group will use your answer to question 2 to acknowledge that your application has been completed and will be considered for review. This is also how we will contact you to communicate any final decisions.

Applications are submitted by responding to this thread

If you have a question about this funding or a related discussion, please post in the other thread!

For general feedback on round 1 applications which can help you in this round, please see and discuss in this other thread!

The GOSH Regional Events Funding program is for groups that want to host an event, workshop, conference, or get-together aimed at supporting open science hardware. The main eligibility criteria is that the event must be aligned with the GOSH Manifesto to make open source hardware ubiquitous and with the GOSH’s ethos of inclusiveness.

2022 REGIONAL EVENTS FUNDING APPLICATION TIMELINE

Applications Open: 15 December 2021
First Round Applications Close: 15 January 2022
Applicants Notified: 1 February 2022
Subsequent funding rounds begin: 1 March 2022
Additional funding rounds will be opened with funding remaining from the first round.

FUNDS

The total funding for this Regional Events funding scheme is $99,100 USD.

The original source of these funds is a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, currently held by GOSH Inc., a non-profit organization in the United States. However, we - the wider GOSH community - gets to decide how to use these funds.

This money will be awarded to groups applying here to hosting Regional Events, and a small amount is reserved to fund a final meta-event for reviewing how this process went.

FUNDING ROUNDS

The first round of funding (this round) will be targeted towards getting large regional events their money as soon as possible. See “Budget” section below for funding levels. Thus applications will only be open for the $9910 level initially. After the first round of applications and funding, applicants will be avaialble to apply for any of the 3 levels of funding and available funds after round 1 will be posted. The second funding round is expected to be announced on 1 March 2022.

If your application is not selected in the first round, it will automatically re-entered into subsequent funding rounds without you having to re-apply! Please tell us if you do not want your application to automatically re-entered.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

All organizations are eligible to apply as long as their proposed events are aligned with the GOSH code of conductand ethos. You do not need a previous relationship/involvement with GOSH. Grants can only be given to a legal organization and not to individuals.

To be clear, physical hardware or hardware design do not have to be the primary output of the event. If hardware is produced, it must be published in a way that meets the OSHWA Open Source Hardware Definition.

Proposals for virtual, in-person, or hybrid events are welcome.

Sadly, because the funds are held by GOSH Inc. (a United States-based non-profit), the funding cannot legally go to organizations based in a place subject to United States trade embargoes (full list here).

To recap eligibility criteria:

• Organization (not individual)
• Event is aligned with GOSH Manifesto
• Event aligns with GOSH code of conduct and ethos
• Not based in a place the USA has a trade embargo

REVIEW PROCESS
Reviewers

Proposals will be reviewed by the Regional Gathering Funding Distribution Working Group formed under an open call published on the GOSH forum and open to anyone to apply. Once this group of 3 to 7 people (which will include at least one Community Council member) is set by the Community Council, they will select projects based on the eligibility criteria.

If a member of this review panel has a conflict of interest with an application, they will recuse themselves from reviewing said application.

Selection Process

Only projects that meet the aforementioned eligibility requirements will be granted full evaluation.

Applications will be evaluated on three key aspects.

1. The first is how the event will advance the GOSH Manifesto at the local level. In short, the GOSH Manifesto contains 10 key principles
   • GOSH is accessible
   • GOSH makes science better
   • GOSH is ethical
   • GOSH changes the culture of science
   • GOSH democratizes science
   • GOSH has no high priests
   • GOSH empowers people
   • GOSH has no black boxes
   • GOSH is impactful tools
   • GOSH allows multiple futures for science

Since this is funding for a GOSH regional event (and not just funding for a specific project), several of these principles should be targetted, but not necessarily all of them must be directly targetted for this single event. Your proposal should note which principles of the GOSH manifesto you hope to target in your event.

2. Applications will be reviewed on the broader impacts of this event for the global community concerning the GOSH manifesto. What happens after this event? What documentation, takeaways, lessons, publications, deliverables, or other outputs will come from this event having occurred? How will the persons involved in this regional event continue the ideas or projects encountered at the event?
3. Finally, the feasibility of the project is taken under consideration. For instance have the organizers demonstrated experience in planning and leading events such as these? Does the budget seem reasonable for what their planned actions are? Does the event seem doable considering their declared goals and timeline?

The reviewers will give a numerical rating (1-3, with 3 being best) to each of the review criteria along with a written justification. The reviewers will then meet amongst themselves to evaluate the applications, deliberate, and create a final list of recommendations for funding.

The rubric for evaluating the applications is listed below. These review criteria maybe be subject to further refinement, but we shall note any changes once this is posted.

Final recommendations for funding will be approved by the the Reviewers interally as a group and then sent to the GOSH community council. The Community Council will only intervene if it considers that there are exceptional circumstances.

Next the Reviewers will notify the recomended awardees of their selection, but the final official approval will only come after the grant awarding body (GOSH Inc.) finishes a final due diligence legal review of the awardees.

BUDGET

Based on their needs, applicants can choose to apply for one of these funding options (in United States Dollars (USD)):

• $3000 for smaller regional events (Only available for applications after Round 1)
• $6000 for medium regional events requiring more support (Only available for applications after Round 1)
• $9910 for larger proposals involving more people, some travel and accommodation costs and local infrastructure needs

The first round of funding (this round) will be targetted towards getting large regional events their money as soon as possible. Thus applications will only be open for the $9910 level initially. After the first round of applications and funding, applicants will be avaialble to apply for any of the 3 levels of funding and available funds after round 1 will be posted.

If your application is not selected in the first round, it will automatically re-entered into subsequent funding rounds without you having to re-apply! Please tell us if you do not want your application to automatically re-entered.

DOCUMENTATION BONUS

In addition, there will be an $800 bonus awarded once the applicant has submitted their post-event documentation output (see responsibilities below).

EVENT CANCELATION/VIRTUALIZATION

In case an event needs to be cancelled (for instance due to COVID-19 restrictions), we can still supply 10% of the awarded money to help with forms of “virtualizing the event” (if the event was not originally planned as virtual). For instance, a large event that was awarded $9,910 but had to cancel the event can still ask for $991 for help with any alternatives. The remaining money from cancelled events will be put back into the funding pool and made available in additional funding rounds.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Responsibilities of selected event proposals:

• Attend scheduled check-ins with the Regional Funding Working group and/or GOSH community Council
• Make a post on the GOSH forum about their event at the conception of the grant
• Post at least one pre-event update on this forum
• Post at least one post-event update on this forum
• Publish at least one mature documentation output that will tangibly benefit the open source community
  • This is broadly defined so be creative. The output can be hardware designs but doesn’t have to be!
  • At least this output (but preferably all outputs) from the event should be shared under an appropriate open source license (i.e. OSHWA 4-compatible licenses for hardware, free software licenses for software, and CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-SA 4.0 for others)

HOW TO APPLY

Timeline for applicants for first round:

• 15 December 2021 to 15 January 2021 - Submit your application
• 1 February 2022 - Successful applications announced (pending official confirmation from the GOSH non-profit, which currently holds the funds)
• 28 February to 5 November 2022 - Run your event!
• By 5 November 2022 - Submit your primary documentation output to receive the USD $800 bonus.
• (Subsequent funding rounds begin: 1 March 2022)

Please fully answer each of the ten questions below and post your completed application to this forum thread before the deadline!

1. Name of organization
2. Email address (or preferred and reliable way of official contact)
3. Tell us about your organization
4. Does your organization have representation for a marginalized demographic due to factors such as, but not limited to, race, ability, place of birth, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class situation or other identification? If so, how?
5. What is the event about, and what do you want to achieve with it?
6. Which of the three levels of funding would you like to apply for? (in round 1 only USD $9910 is avaiable for applications, in further rounds $3000, $6000, or USD $9910 will be available)
7. What is the funding for? Describe your budget. List what you are going to spend it on and how.
8. How will you share the outcomes of this event. What documentation will result that will this project benefit the community as a whole? (videos? photos? a how-to? innovative hardware designs?)
9. How would your event address GOSH’s values of diversity and inclusion?
10. Are there any conflicts of interest that you wish to declare?

After you submit your application here, the working group will use your answer to question 2 to acknowledge that your application has been completed and will be considered for review. This is also how we will contact you to communicate any final decisions.

Applications are submitted by responding to this thread. If you have a question about this funding or a related discussion, please post in this thread on the GOSH Forum!

Awardees of the first round of 2022 regional events funding grant:

5 groups were selected for the tier 1 funding for $9910.

In no particular order these were:

1. AfricaOSH, Africa, link to proposal
2. reGOSH, Latin America, link to proposal
3. International Hackteria Society, Europe/South Asia, link to proposal
4. Digital Naturalism Conference, Global/South Asia link to the proposal
5. LabHack and SanBIO, Africa, link to proposal

Awardees of the second round of 2022 regional events funding grant:

8 groups were selected for three different tiers of funding, $3000, $6000 and $9000.

In no particular order, these were:

1. TanzaniaOSH, link to the proposal ($6000)
2. The Foundry, link to the proposal ($6000)
3. Association Hackuarium, link to the proposal ($3000)
4. JOGL, link to the proposal ($3000)
5. ART±BIO Collaborative, link to the proposal
6. Culture2, link to the proposal ($6000)
7. iGEM, link to the proposal ($3000)
8. Associazione Kin, link to the proposal ($3000)