When Goodbye Comes Too Soon: How to Wrap Up Science Projects Quickly

Science projects are often designed and funded on the scale of years or decades. However, it is not uncommon for researchers to need to finish projects prematurely, due to career changes, laboratory closure, visa issues, personal considerations, or loss of funding. How can we ensure that the effort and resources already invested in partially finished projects are not completely lost? In this piece, we discuss means for rapidly documenting partially finished projects, as well as publishing ‘as you go’ to prevent future problems in an uncertain environment. We provide example venues for releasing products produced at each stage of the research process, including specialized repositories and dedicated peer-reviewed journals. By salvaging and preserving what we can from uncompleted projects, we sustain hope that future researchers can build on our disrupted work.