Zenodo

What is Zenodo?

Zenodo is an open, community-driven research repository developed by CERN and supported by the OpenAIRE initiative. It enables researchers to publish, preserve, and cite all types of research outputs — datasets, software, models, workflows, posters, presentations, reports, and more.

At a glance, Zenodo is:

  • A trusted long-term archive — hosted by CERN with robust, sustainable infrastructure
  • A DOI provider for any research output — instantly creates a citable DOI for code, data, models, and documents
  • Open science by design — supports FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable)
  • Flexible — accepts any file type up to large file sizes (50 GB+ with community support)
  • Versioned — every upload can be updated, with automatic versioning and concept DOIs
  • Integrated with GitHub — one-click archiving of releases for fully reproducible software citations
  • Free — no fees, open access, global reach

Zenodo ensures that your research outputs are accessible, preserved, and formally citable, supporting transparent and reproducible scientific workflows.

Why Zenodo?

Zenodo plays a crucial role in making research open, reusable, and citable. In many projects, important research assets—datasets, code, simulation models, project reports—remain on personal computers, institutional servers, or private GitHub repositories. These materials are often invisible, inaccessible, and unreferenced in publications.

Zenodo solves these problems by providing:

  • Persistent identifiers (DOIs) — making your datasets, software, and models citable in journals and grant reports
  • Long-term preservation — CERN-backed archival storage ensures your work remains accessible years later
  • Transparent versioning — old versions remain available, while a “concept DOI” captures the entire version history
  • Open sharing without barriers — no institutional account required; upload anything from anywhere
  • Improved reproducibility — readers can access the exact code/data used in an analysis
  • Compliance with open-science requirements — many funders and journals require FAIR, citable data and software
  • Easy integration with GitHub — publish GitHub releases automatically to Zenodo for software citation

In short: Zenodo bridges the gap between doing research and reliably sharing it, enabling others to reuse, verify, and build on your work.

Exercise: Upload to Zenodo

Goal: Learn how to publish a research asset (dataset, figure, script, or model) on Zenodo and obtain a DOI.

Instructions:

  1. Go to https://zenodo.org and sign in (GitHub, ORCID, or CERN account recommended).

  2. Click Upload → New Upload.

  3. Drag and drop any small example file (PDF, text file, script, figure, etc.).

  4. Fill in the required metadata:

    • Title (e.g., “Workshop Example Upload”)
    • Authors
    • Description
    • Keywords
    • License (e.g., CC-BY-4.0 or MIT)

  5. Choose whether you want the upload to be public or restricted.

  6. Click Publish to finalize the upload.

  7. Zenodo will generate a DOI — copy it into your notes.

  8. Optional: update the record with a second version to explore versioning.

Outcome: You have created a FAIR, citable research object with a persistent DOI.

Exercise: Activate GitHub Integration

Goal: Automatically archive GitHub releases on Zenodo and obtain DOIs for software.

Prerequisites: A GitHub repository where you have write access.

Instructions:

  1. Go to https://zenodo.org/account/settings/github/.

  2. Click Connect your GitHub account (if not already done).

  3. Zenodo will display a list of your GitHub repositories.

  4. Toggle ON the repository you want to archive.

  5. Go to GitHub → open the selected repository.

  6. Create a new release:

    • Click Releases → Draft a new release
    • Tag: v1.0.0
    • Title: “Initial Zenodo Release”
    • Click Publish release

  7. Wait ~10–30 seconds and reload your Zenodo dashboard.

  8. A new Zenodo record will appear automatically with:

    • a versioned DOI (for the release)
    • a concept DOI (for the software archive as a whole)

Outcome: Your software repository is now fully citable and releases are archived automatically at Zenodo.

Further Reading

Slides