A new home for Open Science
Federate with Mastodon and Bluesky and integrate your social graph with scholarly data. Transform any conversation into citable FAIR data with persistent identifiers. The future of scholarly communication is open, community-owned and interconnected.
In collaboration with
Created by Scientists, for Scientists
Professional identity
Sign in with ORCID, Zenodo or your institutional SSO. Your publications, affiliations, and research interests are imported directly from sources like ORCID and OpenAlex, no manual entry required.
Archive meaningful content
Posts and conversations can receive DOIs and become citable FAIR objects. Through integrations with a growing list of repositories, meaningful exchanges can be preserved as part of the scholarly record, not lost in private threads.
Data sovereignty
Each community can run their own instance. Data remains under your control. Connect globally while preserving local governance and values.
Connected knowledge
Share a paper and see it come alive: metadata, co-authors, datasets, and related works appear instantly. Colleagues can join the conversation no matter what platforms they use.
Extensible
Modular by design. Add repository connectors, peer review workflows, or research tools as your community evolves. Built on Bonfire’s modular framework for total customisation.
Open source.
Community governed.
No vendor lock-in.
Infrastructure focused on research communities, not corporate shareholders. Build, adapt, and govern your own digital space, from the ground up.
Why Open Science Network
Unlike commercial platforms designed to extract value from research communities, the Open Science Network puts communities in control of their digital infrastructure.
| Features | Open Science Network | Slack | Bluesky | Academia.edu | ResearchGate | Mastodon | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data sovereignty | Your server, your data | |||||||
| Free to use | Free to use & self-host | |||||||
| Scientific workflows | ORCID, DOIs, FAIR data | |||||||
| Knowledge preservation | Archiving of citable, FAIR objects | |||||||
| Open collaboration | Federated | |||||||
| Institutional branding | Full white-label control | |||||||
| Vendor independence | Open Source, portable | |||||||
| Compliance | GDPR, institutional policies | |||||||
| Custom development | Full plugin system |
Deploy Your Research Community in Minutes
Industrial-grade federated infrastructure with no licensing fees.
Delivering the reliability, security, and compliance your research community needs.
Institutional SSO integration
ORCID certification and SSO integration with institutional identity providers (OAuth or OpenID connect). Researchers sign in once to verify and access their full professional profile.
GDPR compliant
Built to European data protection standards. Full data sovereignty, consent management, data portability and deletion, and privacy controls that meet institutional policies.
FAIR data
Social content become citable digital objects with persistent identifiers. Posts and discussions can be archived with DOIs and structured metadata, making research outputs discoverable and preserved in the scholarly record.
No fees
No licensing fees—ever. No per-seat pricing, no usage limits, no vendor lock-in. Fund tools and infrastructure for your institution and for the commons, not corporate profit.
Purpose-built for science
Publication previews, repository connectors, peer review workflows, and citation tracking. Every tool is designed for scientific collaboration from the ground up.
Network effects
Global collaboration, local autonomy. Researchers can connect across multiple networks while safeguarding data sovereignty.
Custom branding
Preserve your community's visual identity and create a place that feels like home with an online space that reflects your organisation, not the one-size-fits-all aesthetics of a corporate platform.
Custom roles
Flexible permissions to match your organisational structure. Configure roles for faculty, postdocs, students, and other collaborators with granular access and permission workflows.
Onboarding & support
Expert technical support available: onboarding, training, custom design and development, and ongoing support. We're with you every step.
What researchers are saying
“The Open Science Network offers a comprehensive platform for scientific collaboration and communication. I strongly encourage research organisations to adopt it and embrace the future of open, interoperable research partnerships.”
“The Open Science Network is a transformative initiative, empowering researchers to shape the future of scientific communication. By fostering researcher-led governance, it has the potential to redefine how scientific discourse is conducted and shared.”
“Science needs digital infrastructure for scientific discourse that is scholar-owned and scholar-led. Only with that can the full potential of open science be fulfilled. A scientist-led platform for scientific conversations is the glue that can bring together the many digital tools that researchers have developed for doing science better. It is essential for allowing scientists to exchange ideas, develop research, and disseminate their results freely in a way that genuinely promotes the goals and values of science. This opportunity for the scientific community to co-create independent, non-extractive, non-exploitative digital tools together with Bonfire’s developers couldn’t come at a more important time.”
“Integrating open science principles and tools into the Fediverse, Bonfire is poised to reshape public research for the common good. This approach enables researchers to collaborate more openly and effectively across institutional boundaries.”
“For both local and global academic exchange, the Open Science Network advances beyond traditional journals by providing federated, community-governed platforms tailored for scientific collaboration. This innovation keeps research connected with society through the Fediverse.”
Get started
Pilot programs available. Full data portability, federation, and open source tools guarantee you're never locked in.