Market Dynamics, Governance and Open Research Metadata in the AI Era

TL;DR

This paper examines the persistent gap between freely available and commercially refined research metadata, emphasizing AI's role in reshaping this ecosystem and proposing governance strategies to balance innovation and efficiency.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of the innovation annulus, analyzing its role in research metadata ecosystems and proposing a formal welfare framework for governance.

Findings

AI lowers barriers to structuring metadata

The annulus width indicates production inefficiency

Governance should calibrate, not eliminate, the annulus

Abstract

The debate about scholarly knowledge infrastructure has long been framed as a contest between openness and commercial enclosure. This framing distorts both policy and practice. The real tension lies between the persistent cost of producing and refining structured metadata under deep technological friction, and the differentiated demands distinct communities place on data quality, focus and granularity. We introduce the innovation annulus: the zone between freely available structured data and the advancing frontier of commercially refined knowledge products. This zone is a permanent, functional feature of the ecosystem -- not a pathology to eliminate. By analogy with the efficient market hypothesis, its width measures production inefficiency, set by the interplay of friction and demand. Artificial intelligence reshapes the annulus, lowering barriers to basic structuring, raising the threshold at which refinement adds value, and introducing systemic risks through unprovenanced AI-derived metadata. CRediT contributions, funding acknowledgements and AI disclosure statements illustrate the annulus lifecycle. Governance should calibrate the annulus, not abolish it: thin enough to serve research efficiently, wide enough to sustain innovation. A formal welfare framework, analogous to the Nordhaus optimal patent life, characterises the trade-offs and yields testable predictions. The Barcelona Declaration offers a promising forum for boundary governance.