Ground rules of the Solarpunk Pioneers Fund

Open Science - Open Source

✅ The aim is not a patent or copyright: The insights are released with a permissive license, as a common good, a gift to humanity.

Reuseable by the Community

✅ All (digital) material with clear instructions is provided in a public repository with a long-term preservation strategy.

Solve a sustainability problem, now

✅ Either directly by creating tech solutions, or indirectly by creating a piece of art which provides a vision of a hopeful solarpunk future.

The funding scheme for 2024-2025

Funding Eligibility

In the first pilot project 2024-2025, the funding is only available to students of the Technische Hochschule Augsburg in the MSc program “Energy Efficiency Design – E2D”.

As a side-note: A lot of web3 / crypto-currency / blockchain enthusiasts seem to hijack the solarpunk narrative for greenwashing their endevaours. We are not interested in that kind of funding.

The “Solarpunk Pioneers Fund” (SPF) is a non-commercial, private funding initiative at the intersection of science, technology and sustainability. Following the motto “Think globally, act locally”, we support projects at courses of the Technische Hochschule Augsburg (THA) for Energy Efficient Planning and Building (BEng) and Energy Efficiency Design – E2D (MEng) that develop creative, practical and ecologically valuable solutions for a good life within planetary boundaries. The projects should be designed in such a way that they can be easily replicated and adapted by local communities to make our society more resilient, sustainable and inclusive with broad impact.

Which projects are supported?

We invite students to submit their ideas as part of their scientific work in courses M11 to M13. Projects could, for example, deal with passive systems or research new or rediscovered materials and areas of application, develop measures for climate protection and climate adaptation, etc. But we don’t want to limit your creativity: You can dream and try out new things - innovative and completely new ideas are definitely welcome. We generally fund material costs for your projects. Funds for other costs (e.g. travel expenses) can be requested on a case-by-case basis. The amount of funding is usually up to €500, higher amounts can be requested with justification.

Funding conditions

  • Open Science: All blueprints, source codes, or designs are made available under a permissive license1 and on a public/non-profit repository with a long-term preservation strategy2 for reuse.
  • The prototypes created (and residual materials), which were financed from the fund, are to remain at the THA and be available for further reuse.
  • All steps are to be presented in a comprehensible and reproducible manner; there is no “secret knowledge”.

1 For code, all OSI-approved licenses are eligible. Creative-Commons-like licenses for documentation and other material may not include non-commercial (NC) or “no derivative” (ND) clauses.

2 Public/non-profit repositories with a long-term preservation strategy are, for example, Zenodo or the Open Science Framework. Additionally, the outputs can be shared in a community repository like Appropedia or Thingiverse.

The ideal project …

  • has a direct application
  • solves a concrete sustainability problem now
  • can also be realized by (talented) amateurs with simple building materials; a construction manual allows subsequent use by the community.
  • has a realistic chance of having a functional prototype at the end of the project
  • has a monetary cost estimate (investment, energy and ecological costs), a study of effectiveness and an assessment of ecological, economic and social sustainability.

But: Every project is different, so justified deviations are always possible!

Since these desirable aspects cover a broad spectrum, it is also possible to write the scientific papers in a team in which each person covers different aspects.

We do not fund …

Basic research can often lead to technological breakthroughs years later and we recognize the important function of basic research. However, the focus of our funding is exclusively on application-oriented projects as described above.

FAQs

❓ Can I still develop the project commercially in the future when I release my SPF-funded project under a Creative Commons license? The purpose of the Solarpunk funding is to create a public good, allowing anyone to re-create the device using the developed blueprints and materials. All eligible licenses support this by allowing free reuse. With a CC-BY license, for example, you (the original author) must be credited whenever the work is reused, even if others build on your designs. A CC0 license places the work in the public domain, allowing unrestricted use, whether commercial or non-commercial, without attribution. However, the work cannot be closed off by patents: Once under Creative Commons, it remains free. This means you explicitly forgo patents or other intellectual property rights on the designs and instead release them freely. You are still free to further develop the prototype, even in cooperation with a company, and can commercialize it. Any new aspects of the development may be protected by patents. However, all work done within the context of the SPF funding remains open and can be used by others as a basis for further development. Therefore, the Creative Commons -NC (Non-Commercial) and -ND (No Derivatives) clauses are excluded, as they would prevent commercial reuse or further development by others.