Open Science Framework (OSF)

Searches for “Open Science Foundation” are almost always looking for the Open Science Framework (OSF) — the free, open-source project-management platform built and operated by the Center for Open Science (COS), a nonprofit founded in Charlottesville, Virginia, in January 2013 by Brian Nosek and Jeffrey Spies. There is no organization actually named “Open Science Foundation” in this space; the name confusion comes from conflating the platform (OSF, the Framework) with the organization that runs it (COS, the Center). This page covers OSF the platform, which is what most research-administration and data management plan contexts actually need.

What OSF does

OSF gives a research team a single, persistent project page that can follow a study through its whole lifecycle rather than only the point of publication. Within one project, researchers can:

• Store and version files directly, or connect existing storage — Dropbox, Google Drive, GitHub, Box, and several other add-ons — so collaborators work from one linked view without duplicating copies.
• Control access at the project or component level, keeping a study private during data collection and analysis and switching individual components to public independently.
• Preregister hypotheses, designs, and analysis plans through OSF Registries before data collection begins, producing a time-stamped, read-only record that cannot be edited retroactively — the same underlying mechanism used for formal Registered Reports and general study preregistration.
• Archive and cite a finished project publicly, with OSF assigning a persistent identifier so the project page itself becomes citable alongside the resulting paper, data, and code.

Who runs it, and why it’s free

OSF is built and maintained by the Center for Open Science, a mission-driven nonprofit — not a commercial vendor and not a government body. COS’s stated mission is increasing the openness, integrity, and reproducibility of research; OSF is its flagship infrastructure toward that end, alongside related COS initiatives such as the TOP Guidelines (Transparency and Openness Promotion) that journals and funders can adopt as reporting standards. Because COS is grant- and donation-funded rather than subscription-funded, core use of OSF is free to researchers and institutions, which is part of why it has become a common default recommendation in institutional data management plan guidance.

OSF Registries and preregistration

OSF Registries is the part of the platform most often referenced separately from “OSF” generally. It hosts branded, community-run registries — used by specific funders, publishers, and research communities to set their own preregistration standards — on the same shared infrastructure, alongside general-purpose preregistration templates researchers can use for any study. A completed registration is locked and time-stamped, which is what gives preregistration its evidentiary value: it lets a reader compare what was planned against what was ultimately reported, directly addressing concerns about open science practices like HARKing (hypothesizing after results are known) and selective outcome reporting.

How OSF differs from other repositories researchers use

OSF is frequently mentioned alongside other research infrastructure that solves an adjacent but distinct problem, and mixing them up is common enough to be worth stating plainly:

• Zenodo and Figshare are primarily archival data repositories — the point is depositing a finished output and getting a DOI. OSF can do that too, but its core purpose is managing the project across its lifecycle, including stages well before anything is ready to archive.
• GitHub is a code-hosting and version-control platform; OSF can link to a GitHub repository as one component of a broader project rather than replacing it.
• CoreTrustSeal is a certification scheme repositories can earn to demonstrate trustworthiness against a published set of requirements — it evaluates repositories like OSF, rather than being a repository itself.

Where OSF fits in research data management

For research administrators and data stewards, OSF most often comes up in two places: as a named option in a data management plan‘s storage-and-sharing section, and as the mechanism behind a funder’s or journal’s preregistration or open-data requirement. Because OSF supports linking out to discipline-specific or institutional repositories rather than requiring everything to live natively on OSF, it’s commonly used as the project-management and preregistration layer even when the final archived dataset ends up in a different, domain-specific repository.

Frequently asked questions

Is there really an organization called “Open Science Foundation”?

No. The platform is the Open Science Framework (OSF); the nonprofit that operates it is the Center for Open Science (COS). Neither is named “Open Science Foundation” — that phrasing appears to be a conflation of the two real names.

Is OSF free to use?

Core project management, storage links, and preregistration on OSF are free for individual researchers and institutions; COS is nonprofit and grant/donation-funded rather than charging subscription fees for basic use.

Does OSF assign DOIs?

Yes — a public OSF project or registration can be assigned a persistent identifier so it can be cited independently of the resulting journal article.

Is OSF the same as a data repository like Zenodo or Figshare?

No. OSF covers project management across the research lifecycle, including private working stages and preregistration; Zenodo and Figshare are primarily for archiving and citing finished outputs. OSF projects can link to those repositories rather than duplicating their function.