Table 3.

Financial sustainability top policy options

Issue statement	The commons has characteristics of a public good, which makes ensuring long-term sustainability challenging
Top three policy options (label)*	Points to consider	Illustrative quotes (study ID)
Funders could provide stable funding for trusted entities (eg GA4GH) (FS1)	Builds on proven track record	`Prioritizing funding of GA4GH IMHO has incredible value if funding and resources were to expand driver projects like BRCA Exchange' (013)
	Define ‘trusted’	‘I would need to know what the criteria for “trust” is, and who makes these criteria. For whom is GA4GH a trusted partner? What is the ground of trust?’ (004)
	Requires a culture shift	‘Stable public fund commitments seem in principle like the most sustainable option … [T]he culture of public research funding tends to prioritize relatively short-term research grants. A shift in this culture would probably be required if sustainable funding for resources such as a cancer commons were to become a feasible option’ (009)
Funders could focus on broadening use of existing data resources (FS7)	Responsible choice	‘Rather than building new resources from scratch, it seems more feasible and responsible to build on existing resources and support trusted entities with a strong track record’ (016)
	Minimizes waste from reinvention and unproductive competition	‘There is a tendency to constantly be reinventing new platforms/resources, that only add to the competition for limited resources’ (024)
Funders could invest in low-cost data archiving/storing (FS4)	Viewed as pragmatic and equitable	‘Taking pragmatic steps like low-cost storage…are feasible and effective as well as equitable’ (012)
	Need to be selective to not waste resources	‘Not all data are valuable and so low-quality archiving is a waste of resources’ (017)

^*See supplementary tables for all policy options labeled by domain (number), eg FS1 for the first list policy option in the financial sustainability domain.