Opening science: How a Berlin-based startup is trying to make scientists more social | ZDNet

"In 2008, when Ijad Madisch was doing a medical residency in Germany, he tried to convince his supervising professor of the pressing need for a social network for scientists. The professor called him crazy. 'He told me that I should get this birdshit out of my head, that I should focus on my career. He said 'scientists are not social, and this will never change',' Madisch said.  'So I quit the next day.'  Madisch, who was at the time studying virology, found a part-time residency at Harvard, where he could devote time and energy to developing ResearchGate, a website that helps scientists connect, share research, and collaborate. Five years and several investment rounds later (including, most recently, $35m in funding from Bill Gates and Tenaya Capital) ResearchGate is proving that scientists can be social, and currently has almost three million active members. ResearchGate has all the trappings of your standard social networking site: users can create profiles, follow others, and ask and respond to questions. But its aspirations rise above simple socialisation. 'My vision is creating an open science movement, where scientific information is freely available for everyone,' Madisch said. ResearchGate's collaborative potential is becoming clear, with scientists from all disciplines transparently discussing topics that, not too long ago, might have remained siloed away in the Ivory Tower. For instance, last year, a researcher from Cambridge asked a question on the site about technologies that the world would need for more effective conservation. He received responses, and heated debate, from scientists all over the world, which he later discussed in a workshop at Cambridge. Likewise, two scientists from two corners of the world — one from Nigeria, the other from Italy — looked at a plant pathogen that, for the first time, was found to have killed a human — a 38-day-old girl in Nigeria. The pair, who connected through ResearchGate, have recently published their findings in a peer-reviewed journal ..."