Research Knowledge Ecosystems as Federated Infrastructures: A Layered Model of Coordination, Communities, and Curation

Abstract. Discussions of Open Science often describe it as an ecosystem. However, they rarely explain how coordination works across the layers connecting knowledge objects, deliberation, digital services, organisations, and policy. This paper develops a five-layer model of research knowledge ecosystems and treats them as federated digital infrastructures shaped by a persistent tension between control and change. It presents online communities as a conditional cross-layer coordination mechanism: a community qualifies when its coordinating work spans at least three layers and involves at least two distinct coordination activities. Drawing on coordination theory, it distinguishes four dependency types: task, resource, interpretive, and institutional. Curation is treated as a recurring activity that cuts across layers and dependency types. It also proposes two hypotheses with clear conditions under which they would be weakened: H1 on incentive misfit and H2 on interoperability friction. The two hypotheses connect issues that are often studied separately. They propose how non-recognition of curated outputs and poor interoperability can displace or erode coordination work across layers. They also connect these changes to the conditions needed for reuse, including aligned research objects, norms, services, and incentives. The framework is illustrated through two worked readings based on the same layer and dependency definitions: revisions between the first and second editions of the EOSC Federation Handbook, which yield a testable expectation for node enrolment in 2026–2027, and Ukraine’s national research-assessment instruments as a contrasting Layer 5 case. Ukraine’s scholarly communication system is then considered a high-disruption design scenario. The resulting framework is intended both to support ecosystem design and to make the redistribution of coordination work open to testable analysis.