Scientific research is going to change drastically with innovations like this.

I didn't realize that it's more than a social network: It's a place to share research.

ResearchGate has found a clever contractual way to let researchers upload their papers outside the walled gardens of the traditional journals, and it’s growing fast. In its first 50 months, 2 million publications were added to the platform – the same number is uploaded each month now, and 700 datasets are going up each day. Here, for example, is the original Nature stem cell paper on ResearchGate, complete with a red note on the side to say it is “non-reproducible”.

“The next couple of months on ResearchGate will be so exciting,” Madisch enthused. “We have the reach, we have the engagement, we have this great feature, and the scientific community is accepting us.”