ResearchGATE is the world's largest scientific online platform with more than 140,000 members. Combining features of social networks with others serving the particular needs of scientists, it contains, among others: personal pages; a search tool to find fellow researchers and online groups to facilitate worldwide cooperation; scientific job listings; etc.

Its most recent tool is a SelfArchiving Repository - an online library enabling free access to full-text scientific articles from all fields. Infringement of copyrights is not an issue because each profile page within ResearchGATE is legally considered the personal website of the user, and the majority of journal publishers allow articles to be openly accessible on personal homepages. Since each individual profile is networked to the larger platform, the uploaded resources will form an enormous pool of research. A publication index makes every publication identifiable and is searchable.

All services of ResearchGATE are free of charge. To learn more about the portal and its many features, visit www.researchgate.net and sign up for a free profile.