The CGScholar platform is developed by the Common Ground Media Lab, the research and technology arm of Common Ground Research Networks.

Common Ground Research Networks has been developing knowledge ecologies and researching scholarly communication technologies since 1984.

Our premise has been that media platforms — pre-digital and now also digital — have often not been designed to structure and facilitate a rigorous, democratic, and a sustainable knowledge economy.

CGScholar is a platform that seeks to become a trusted marketplace for knowledge work, one that rigorously democratizes the process of knowledge-making, rewards participants, and offers a secure basis for the sustainable creation and distribution of digital knowledge artifacts.

The CGScholar platform is today being used by knowledge workers as diverse as: faculty in universities to deliver e-learning experiences; innovative schools wishing to challenge the ways learning and assessment have traditionally worked; and government and non-government organizations connecting local knowledge and experience to wider policy objectives and measurable outcomes. Each of these use cases illustrates the different knowledge communities that CGScholar serves, while also opening spaces for new and emerging voices in the world of scholarly communication.

With 27,000 published works and 200,000 users, we have come a long way since our first web app in twenty years ago. But we still only see this as the beginning.

As a not-for-profit, Common Ground Research Networks is guided by a core mission: to support the building of better societies and informed citizenries through rigorous and inclusive social knowledge practices, offering in-person and online scholarly communication spaces.