In this keynote, Katharina Meyer — Director of the Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund — will reflect on the evolving role of research in supporting and sustaining the open source ecosystem. Drawing on the experience of D//F as field builder and alignment actor, she will explore how insights can support to maintain the functionality, relationships, and dependencies within the network of behavioral regimes, social norms, and technical standards that underpin open technologies, (whether in community-driven projects or enterprise environments). She will also examine the need for distinct, independent research entities that — while unified by scientific principles — serve different purposes and engage with various subfields and communities. Finally, she will highlight how the Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund’s portfolio reflects these dynamics and discuss where the broader open source research ecosystem may be headed in the future.
