Cornell Tech has received more than $7 million from Schmidt Sciences and NASA to upgrade arXiv, an open-access research repository of more than 2.8 million articles.
The funding will help arXiv - which is maintained and operated by Cornell Tech - finish migrating to cloud infrastructure and modernizing its code. It will also support the development of tools that offer personalized recommendations for discovering preprints.
"I am profoundly grateful for this generous support from both Schmidt Sciences and NASA," said Greg Morrisett, the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech. "This investment will ensure that arXiv can grow sustainably and continue to serve the needs of the global research community well into the future."
Ramin Zabih, arXiv's executive director and professor of computer science at Cornell Tech, said the repository is undergoing a technology transformation to meet future challenges and respond effectively to changes affecting the research community.
"The funding from Schmidt Sciences and NASA will allow us to complete our technology migration while simultaneously exploring ways to improve the service," said Zabih, who is also affiliated with the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. "We are grateful to Schmidt Sciences and NASA for supporting arXiv in its efforts to build a stronger foundation for the future."
Schmidt Sciences' gift will allow arXiv to maintain an expanded development team and finish modernization without disrupting operations. NASA's grant will fund research into fairer, more effective discovery tools and help arXiv expand into subject areas of interest to the agency, such as planetary science.
"Schmidt Sciences is thrilled to help support arXiv migrate to modern, scalable cloud technology, and ensure it can sustainably meet the accelerating demands of the global research community,"said James Ricci, director of science systems at Schmidt Sciences. "We hope that this will continue advancing open science for years to come."
Founded in 1991 by Paul Ginsparg, professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences and of informations science in Cornell Bowers, arXiv has become a cornerstone of open science that serves scholars in physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, finance, statistics, electrical engineering and economics. In addition to the new gifts and grants, arXiv receives ongoing support from the Simons Foundation, academic libraries, universities, research organizations, professional societies and individual donors.
Grace Stanley is the staff writer-editor for Cornell Tech.
