Introducing ATProto Science

Just before you log off for the holidays, we’re excited to share news about ATProto Science, a new initiative we’re launching that we’ve been partnering on with collaborators in the ATProto ecosystem.

ATProto for Science (or ATScience for short) is an initiative to connect and support researchers, developers, and communities exploring how ATProto can serve research, education, and open knowledge work.

Cosmik is also co-organizing and sponsoring the first ATProto for Science workshop! It will be a full-day, in-person gathering (March 27, 2026 in Vancouver, BC) during the main ATProto conference, AtmosphereConf 2026 (March 26-29). See below for registration details and a call for proposals.

Why Now?

ATProto has huge potential for supporting new ways of doing research, and this initiative is intended to help catalyze the efforts that will get us there!

Research communities face increasing fragmentation, platform fragility, and funding uncertainty. Science social media has long suffered from commercial platforms that come and go, change their policies, and in some cases actively extract value from the communities that sustain them. Meanwhile, government cuts to science funding make resilient, self-governed infrastructure more critical than ever.

ATProto offers the promise of research networks that communities can meaningfully build, control, adapt, and maintain themselves.

What Is ATScience?

ATScience is an exciting nascent space with a lot of emergent projects and activity, including:

• Researchers using Bluesky for science communication and collaboration
• Lively discussions around new visions for science social media. For a recent example, polarized discourse around AI on Bluesky triggered interesting conversations on new moderation affordances to protect researchers from harassment.
• Builders creating research tools tools on Bluesky and ATProto: credentials, feeds, review and curation (such as our semble.so!)

These efforts exist, but they are still scattered. ATScience aims to weave them together into an ecosystem, creating spaces for connection, collaboration, and shared learning.

Groups like Blacksky and Northsky are exploring community governed social media infrastructure. Could we do the same for science social media?

Who Is ATProto Science For?

We're thinking broadly about "science": traditional academic research, but also community science, independent research, education, self-teaching, and any form of rigorous knowledge work.

If you're:

• Building research tools or infrastructure on ATProto
• Conducting research on or using Bluesky and ATProto platforms
• Reimagining scholarly publishing and communication in the age of AI and open social protocols
• Interested in how decentralized protocols can support new forms of research and knowledge work
• Curious about alternatives to extractive academic platforms

...this is for you!

Attend ATScience 2026

Our first major event is a full-day workshop at ATmosphereConf 2026 in Vancouver, BC on March 27, 2026! For event details and registration:

https://atproto.science/events/atmosphere2026/

Present at ATScience 2026

Want to present your work, lead a discussion, or demo your project? We’re looking for contributors across all areas of science on ATProto or open social media more broadly, from academic research to new knowledge tools or grassroots citizen science. Submit your proposal here:

https://forms.atproto.science/atscience26-proposals

Get Involved

We're figuring this out together. If you're working on something in this space, thinking about these questions, or just curious:

• Follow us on BlueSky
• Join the conversation on the ATProto Science feed
• Join our ATProto for Science Discourse forum and introduce yourself
• Submit your project to our Projects directory
• Reach out at hello@atproto.science if you want to help shape what ATProto for Science becomes

Happy holidays!