For every major argument in society, a published vote of the 300 most significant researchers in that field—selected through a reproducible ranking, verified by cryptography, and recorded where nobody can quietly edit it later.
01 / THE IDEA
Scientific Vote does not settle scientific questions. It measures what a field’s most significant researchers currently think—and makes that evidence inspectable.
If the panel splits, the split is the result. Dissent, abstentions, confidence and response rate are published as prominently as agreement.
02 / THE PROTOCOL
The method separates the editorial choice of who belongs on a panel from the cryptographic proof of who controls each seat.
BUILD
Combine multiple public rankings, freeze their dated inputs and publish the criteria and code. Commit the resulting list on-chain so later changes are visible.
CLAIM
A scientist proves control of their institutional email through DKIM-in-ZK, with eduGAIN as the planned fallback. The operator never holds a secret that can claim a seat.
VOTE
Five-point responses, a 1–10 confidence score and optional comments. Ballots stay encrypted until close; results show individual answers, dissent and abstentions.
REPEAT
The code, claiming mechanism and governance remain. Only the rankings and institutional domains are rebuilt—making each new panel cheaper to establish.
03 / THE RESULT
A published result always keeps the distribution visible—not just the majority.
Illustrative interface only—no vote data is shown.
Every answer. Named responses where participants opt in, with a pseudonymous route for safety.
Every confidence level. Uncertainty is measured rather than hidden inside a single percentage.
Every limitation. Response rate, demographic composition, conflicts and abstentions travel with the result.
Every version. Published records remain addressable and cannot be silently replaced.
04 / THE FIELDS
The selection algorithm, the claiming protocol and the publication format carry across every field. What gets rebuilt each time is the definition of the field itself and the panel that follows from it — which is the part worth arguing about, so it is published too.
The fastest-moving field on the list, where what someone published five years ago says least about what they know now.
THE HARD PART Hyperauthorship. Papers with a hundred or more authors are routine, so a raw h-index measures membership of large groups as much as contribution.
Quantum science has no single home discipline — it cuts across atomic physics, condensed matter and high-energy physics.
THE HARD PART Defining it. Select by discipline alone and the panel becomes "all of physics", so the field is gated by topic and that gate is the main thing to get right.
The field where the gap between what the evidence supports and what the public believes is widest, and where commercial interest is closest to the research.
THE HARD PART Industry funding and very large cohort consortia. Declared interests and conflict screening matter more here than anywhere else on the list.
Decisions here are made by politicians almost continuously, and almost never with a visible reading of what the research community actually thinks.
THE HARD PART Citation densities are a fraction of those in AI or physics, and books count for more than papers. Comparing a raw h-index across these two fields measures the field, not the person.
First because the institutions that arbitrate climate evidence are losing their largest funder, and because a defensible ranking is now buildable from open data.
THE HARD PART Citation rankings in this field skew heavily toward the US and under-represent the global south. We measure that and publish it beside the panel.
05 / TRUST MODEL
Cryptography can verify that the right person controls a seat. It cannot decide who deserves that seat in the first place.
T1 · WHO ARE THE 300?
No system removes this choice. Scientific Vote makes it pre-registered, reproducible, committed, challengeable and declinable.
T2 · WHO HOLDS EACH SEAT?
Institutional email signatures become public, verifiable proofs. The operator cannot impersonate a panellist or quietly reassign a seat.
06 / GOVERNANCE & FUNDING
PRESENCE
An ENS name resolves to pinned site files and records, preserving a verifiable history rather than a quietly editable database.
TREASURY
ETH is staked in a Rethink Finance vault. Operations use yield while the principal remains untouched.
Open the Scientific Vote vault (opens in a new tab)CONTROL
A temporary guardian protects launch. Its powers expire only after public, measurable conditions are met.
CADENCE
Governance follows the soonami4good cycle, with timelocks and a deliberately narrow privileged surface.
07 / DESIGNED AROUND FAILURE
Use two-minute ballots, begin at low frequency, build a committed standing panel and pre-commit the minimum response rate required to publish.
The list is an invitation, never a judgment. Anyone may decline. Non-participation is never reported as disagreement, and the ranking method remains open to competing implementations.
Use multiple co-equal inputs, including a non-bibliometric roster; publish code, criteria and the panel’s composition beside every result.
Draft wording in public, use standardised effect-size language and require panel ratification before any vote opens.
Encrypt ballots until close, disclose conflicts, audit a random sample and place every privileged action behind a timelock.
08 / ROADMAP
FEASIBILITY
Survey institutional DKIM coverage, prototype the ranking, approach Carbon Brief and scope the legal wrapper.
Gate: DKIM threshold met or eduGAIN fallback confirmed.RANKING
Freeze all inputs, commit the Merkle root and open the challenge window.
Gate: a third party reproduces the list independently.CLAIMING
Launch wallets, recovery and a non-crypto onboarding path.
Gate: reach the pre-committed claim rate—proposed at 40%.FIRST VOTE
Panel-ratified empirical statements, complete results and visible composition.
Gate: result published in full with response rate.SUNSET
Transfer control to the DAO after one complete governance cycle without guardian intervention.
Gate: decentralisation demonstrated, not announced.SECOND FIELD
Reuse the protocol for Quantum or nutrition.
Gate: materially lower marginal cost than field one.09 / OPEN QUESTIONS
01Should the panel be selected by rank alone, or balance geography, discipline and representation?
02What minimum claim rate makes a vote publishable at all?
03Should individual ballots be named, pseudonymous—or decided by each panellist?
04Who may propose statements, and who ratifies the wording?
05Should Scientific Vote partner with Carbon Brief or build only from open inputs?
06What structural protection matters when a result is politically inconvenient?
10 / FUNDING
A project paid for by donors can be defunded by donors — and a panel whose result embarrasses someone will meet that pressure eventually. So the treasury is never spent. Only the income it produces is.
ETH is staked in a Rethink Finance vault. The principal stays with whoever staked it, along with whatever the price does. The staking yield funds the work.
Stake. Non-custodial, through the vault. Unstake whenever you choose — there is no lock-up.
Keep. Your ETH remains yours throughout, with its full upside and downside.
Contribute. The yield, and only the yield, pays for panels, permanence and audits.
Staking carries smart-contract and validator risk, yields vary with network participation, and the project itself pays no financial return. This is not investment advice.
11 / TAKE PART
Scientific Vote is being built in the open. Working-group meetings cover the method, the panel selection and the open questions that are still genuinely open. Leave an address and we will send the next invitation.
HOW THIS WORKS This page stores nothing and sends nothing. The form opens a pre-filled message in your own mail client, which you send yourself — so your address goes directly to us and passes through no third party. That keeps the site free of trackers and of any server that would have to be trusted.
THE HONEST ONE-LINE VERSION
Scientific Vote will not tell society what to believe. It will make one important claim checkable: what the field’s most significant researchers currently think.
Read the concept paper