life-itself
[epic] Dedicated research subsite with consolidated content (2025)
This effort is about creating a much better online gateway for the Life Itself Research Collective including:
- Dedicated micro-site at https://research.lifeitself.org/
- Consolidating research-related content there in an accessible way e.g. a clear list of all significant research outputs
- Publishing un-published background materials e.g. vision and focus
TODO: situation and complication to provide context for this. Some of this in #1159
Tasks
Initial migration
- [x] #1206
- [x] Check in with people
- [ ] Do redirect
Add stuff
- [x] #1207
- [ ] #1210
Update home page and design
- [x] Moodboard 2025-06-13 https://excalidraw.com/#json=LjaKlLy8NkBAtYkDjGqeA,Lyn96boA-clPEILtH5WZ-g 💬2025-08-28 trying to migrate to https://link.excalidraw.com/l/9u8crB2ZmUo/31oiyuID1fn
- [x] Design/wireframe
- [x] Implement
Show members
- [ ] Update website presence - to include members names and outputs (and allow for members to manage)
Content
- [x] Publish (tidied) SCQH as a blog post in research section ✅2025-06-02 by @rufuspollock https://research.lifeitself.org/posts/where-next-for-2025
- [ ] Create a document/page with links to recent Research Group documents for members to review
- [ ] Migrate post announcing the evolution/birth of research collective https://lifeitself.org/notes/research-at-life-itself-2023
Bonus
- [ ] Presentation on how of 2R renaissance 2024-08-14 - slides - assume there was a recording ...
- [ ] Materials from DDS in person meeting Sep 2024
Process clarification / documentation
- [ ] Draft an agreed vision statement and share
- [x] Develop research dissemination idea(s)
- [ ] Draft simple SOP for the structure of the Research Calls - (create purpose statement like Connection Calls intro, and integrate in using the Forum as the place to go, meeting doc notes?)
📥 Inbox
- [ ] Migrate research related material at notes.lifeitself.org (and in lifeitself.org which should be redirected)
- [ ] #1162
Hi @rufuspollock, I spent 1.5h on a little moodboard for the research website design: https://excalidraw.com/#json=LjaKlLy8NkBAtYkDjGqeA,Lyn96boA-clPEILtH5WZ-g.
Contains a few examples from some of the websites I reviewed plus some reflections on what I think the design persona of the site should be. (did it in excalidraw as didn't have access to edit the Figma)
Hello @rufuspollock and @catherinet1 , just connecting this up with developments on #1215
I've checked off 'Develop research dissemination ideas' above with a new tab in this document
I'd suggest:
- make the website primarily about showcasing a selection of more polished outputs, rather than the ongoing stream of sometimes more minor activity, which happens on the substack - and great idea to have a better design following the examples on the moodboard, and making previous polished outputs more accessible.
- make the substack the main place to showcase outputs and research of current members of the research collective, so perhaps no need for: "Update website presence - to include members names and outputs (and allow for members to manage)"
- also no need for "Create a document/page with links to recent Research Group documents for members to review" (not sure which documents are referred to here, if research outpus then this can be the substack, if internal strategy documents then not sure it is appropriate to publish them)
- also consequently, no need to "Publish (tidied) SCQH as a blog post in research section ✅2025-06-02 by @rufuspollock https://research.lifeitself.org/posts/where-next-for-2025" - this is more of an internal document anyway, not clear that it's useful to publish.
- personally I would also not bother with "Migrate post announcing the evolution/birth of research collective https://lifeitself.org/notes/research-at-life-itself-2023" I'd say there's already enough to indicate the nature of the research collective, and the research outputs speak for themselves.
- can we check off "Draft simple SOP for the structure of the Research Calls - (create purpose statement like Connection Calls intro, and integrate in using the Forum as the place to go, meeting doc notes?)" with this document
make the website primarily about showcasing a selection of more polished outputs, rather than the ongoing stream of sometimes more minor activity, which happens on the substack - and great idea to have a better design following the examples on the moodboard, and making previous polished outputs more accessible.
👍
make the substack the main place to showcase outputs and research of current members of the research collective, so perhaps no need for: "Update website presence - to include members names and outputs (and allow for members to manage)"
I think we probably want some stuff on there about some of the main members to give a sense of who is involved. but not a biggie for now.
also no need for "Create a document/page with links to recent Research Group documents for members to review" (not sure which documents are referred to here, if research outpus then this can be the substack, if internal strategy documents then not sure it is appropriate to publish them)
I was thinking about things like the vision document etc. These could be posted to the substack at very least i think we want a consolidated page linking to key stuff. We can default to having stuff on the substack (fine with me) but we probably still want something that links to the key articles there.
also consequently, no need to "Publish (tidied) SCQH as a blog post in research section ✅2025-06-02 by @rufuspollock research.lifeitself.org/posts/where-next-for-2025" - this is more of an internal document anyway, not clear that it's useful to publish.
I think we do want to publish these documents if possible - it is useful to have them to refer to in the future and not have to dig through google docs etc. As i said, i'm happy for these to be on substack too (they will be rare) but i think they are important to document the evolution ...
personally I would also not bother with "Migrate post announcing the evolution/birth of research collective lifeitself.org/notes/research-at-life-itself-2023" I'd say there's already enough to indicate the nature of the research collective, and the research outputs speak for themselves.
IME having some of the historical "meta" material up somewhere is v useful at some point and cheap to do at the time ...
can we check off "Draft simple SOP for the structure of the Research Calls - (create purpose statement like Connection Calls intro, and integrate in using the Forum as the place to go, meeting doc notes?)" with this document
Yes, if it gets posted on research.lifeitself.org somewhere appropriate ... 😄
Basic principle is anything "official" and reasonably polished in terms of process / vision (even if updating over time) gets posted either on substack or on research.lifeitself.org (latter more likely for reference material).
@catherinet1 i just went to moodboard and wanted to archive to a proper exaclidraw ... and none of the images showed up. Are they there for you?
Following recent discussions between me and Rufus, I think the Life Itself Research Substack can serve the goal of having a place for ongoing high quality 'blog-style' research outputs that is more curated than the forum, which has also been the idea behind the (not yet active) Little Wiser substack.
I have drafted some amendments to the Life Itself Research substack to enable it to better fulfil this role:
- updates to the about page
- updates to section/navigation bar headings (renamed 'Writings' > 'Blog', renamed 'Research' > 'Publications')
- updates to home page layout, with closer link to 'Blog' section.
The envisaged flow here is that 'Blog' includes ongoing exploratory writing, a subset of which can be 'promoted' for inclusion in the 'publications' page.
There is a process/technical issue around use of the 'blog' that requires further definition (and would arise for any such blog, e.g. Little Wiser as well), which is: when content is originally posted elsewhere (e.g. life itself white paper, posts on other substacks), it is not technically possible in substack to cross-post to a specific section ('blog'). Instead it is only possible to cross-post to the homepage - and in the current layout only the latest cross-post would be shown. It therefore seems preferable to either 1) create a new post with the same content in the blog section (i.e. copy and paste content) with a short link at the top to the original location or 2) create a new post with a short introduction to and link to the post on the other location. Both approaches have been used, but I tentatively recommend (1).
Note we have an existing process for submission to this substack. I have made minor amendments with regard to the section headings, but otherwise these seem consistent with the new framing.
@catherinet1 i just went to moodboard and wanted to archive to a proper exaclidraw ... and none of the images showed up. Are they there for you?
Moodboard images are showing up for me both in the original Excalidraw I created and in the one to which Rufus tried to migrate, so looks as though this is fixed? (N.B. I am using a different machine now than the one that I created the Excalidraw on). I copied over the entire moodboard again in case that helps to the one Rufus was migrating to. https://app.excalidraw.com/l/9u8crB2ZmUo/31oiyuID1fn.