ResearchGate

ResearchGate is a commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers^[2] to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators.^[3] According to a 2014 study by Nature and a 2016 article in Times Higher Education, it is the largest academic social network in terms of active users,^[4][5] although other services have more registered users, and a 2015–2016 survey suggests that almost as many academics have Google Scholar profiles.^[6]

While reading articles does not require registration, people who wish to become site members need to have an email address at a recognized institution or to be manually confirmed as a published researcher in order to sign up for an account.^[7] Articles are free to read by visitors, however additional features (such as job postings or advertisements) are accessible only as a paid subscription. Members of the site each have a user profile and can upload research output including papers, data, chapters, negative results, patents, research proposals, methods, presentations, and software source code. Users may also follow the activities of other users and engage in discussions with them. Users are also able to block interactions with other users.

The site has been criticized for sending unsolicited email invitations to coauthors of the articles listed on the site that were written to appear as if the email messages were sent by the other coauthors of the articles (a practice the site said it had discontinued as of November 2016^[8]) and for automatically generating apparent profiles for non-users who have sometimes felt misrepresented by them.^[5] A study found that over half of the uploaded papers appear to infringe copyright, because the authors uploaded the publisher's version.^[9]