Curlew Research consultant, Richard Shute, was honoured to be invited to talk at ISC2023 in Manchester, UK on work he has been doing with the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) looking at the application and use of blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) in chemistry and science more generally.
IUPAC is the world authority on chemical nomenclature, terminology, standardized methods for measurement, atomic weights and many other critically-evaluated data. IUPAC also develops and maintains recommendations that create a common language for the global chemistry community. In 2021, IUPAC identified Blockchain Technology as one of its 10 emerging technologies in chemistry with the greatest capacity to open new opportunities in chemistry and beyond. As part of the generation and development of awareness of blockchain technology across the global chemical and scientific communities, IUPAC established a team, including Richard Shute, to look into how the technology was being applied along the scientific workflow. Beginning in 2020 the group started interviewing experts around the world with the objective of creating a white paper on the topic; this paper will be published in 2023 in Pure and Applied Chemistry. From the interviews and the team’s own experience, they found that blockchain technology is indeed being used in almost all the steps in the scientific research workflow – from hypothesis development through to publication – by commercial organizations as well as non-profits, and across all market sectors, even governments.
The short presentation given at ISC2023 entitled “The Use Of Blockchain Technology Along The Scientific Research Workflow” summarizes the findings, discusses the pros/cons of the technology, and provides a glimpse of how the technology is impacting the future of scientific research.