At Sciety we're pioneering a new layer of open scholarly communication, one that captures informal conversations around preprints and makes them discoverable and reusable. Sciety has secured new funding from NLNet Foundation to help us make conversations around preprints more open, more connected, and more rewarding for researchers.
Over the next six months, we’ll be working with Bonfire Networks to bring preprint discussions closer to the heart of scholarly communication, rather than being hidden away on commercial, siloed social media platforms.
Why decentralised preprint discourse matters
Right now, a lot of valuable discussion about new research happens in places like X/Twitter, Bluesky, Slack, or through email, conversations that are easy to miss, hard to find again, and disconnected from the preprints they are about.
Our goal is to make it easy for researchers to:
- Share insights about preprints
- Connect with others interested in the same areas
- Get recognition for contributing to scientific conversations
- Keep the record of those discussions linked to the research itself
We want to help research communities, labs, networks, early-career groups build their own spaces to talk about new science, and make those conversations part of the bigger picture of research discovery.
What we’re doing to foster open preprint discourse
With the support of NLNet, we will be:
- Creating a community platform, specially designed for researchers to discuss preprints in an open, trusted environment. To do this we are leveraging the existing work on Bonfire.
- Connecting conversations directly to Sciety, so that comments and discussions appear alongside curated evaluations and reviews.
- Making it easier for research groups to create their own discussion spaces, with simple guides and support.
- Helping researchers get recognition for their contributions, linking engagement to researcher profiles and encouraging constructive, visible contributions.
- Piloting with real research communities to make sure everything we build genuinely fits the needs of scientists.
Throughout the project, we'll be sharing regular updates from Sciety on what we're learning and building.
Join us
We’re building a future where early-stage research isn't just shared faster, it's discussed more openly, valued more clearly, and connected more meaningfully to the scientific record. Right now we’re looking for researchers who want to test early versions, give feedback, or set up their own community spaces. If you’re passionate about open science, preprints, or building better research communities, we’d love for you to follow along, get involved, and help shape what comes next.