SciProFlow: A Blockchain-Based Scientific Data Provenance Solution for Complex Multi-Workflow Environments

When collaborating on research projects with members of different institutions across varied locations, scientific researchers need a secure and efficient way to capture, store, and share scientific workflow provenance. To prevent research fraud and falsification, as well as tampering from external actors, researchers need an immutable and secure platform. We propose a public blockchain-based system, SciProFlow, that allows researchers to store scientific workflow provenance on the blockchain while integrating an off-chain storage component for storing scientific data. SciProFlow can store multiple complex workflows on a single blockchain while also allowing for branching and merging of separate workflows. Our system features a novel invalidation method that allows researchers to redo incorrect workflow tasks while ensuring that only incorrect provenance records are invalidated. We believe that implementing these features on a public system would encourage greater collaboration among researchers and allow discoveries to be reached more efficiently