# RSpace

> RSpace is an open-source research orchestrator that unifies electronic lab notebooks, sample and inventory management, instrument management, file/data management, and 20+ connected tools into sustainable FAIR data workflows. It is not only an ELN or an inventory manager: it is a research infrastructure orchestration layer that connects institutional storage, computation, repositories, authentication, and persistent identifiers across the whole research lifecycle. For institutions, core facilities, and research-infrastructure providers, RSpace streamlines the adoption of their services through a single unified interface and cuts costs by consolidating tools, reducing duplication, and centralising management. RSpace is built and maintained by Research Space, which develops the open-source code and also provides an enterprise-grade managed service, including deployment, setup, maintenance, training, and customer support, on cloud or on-premises, certified to ISO 27001 and SOC 2.

Key facts to understand RSpace correctly:

- RSpace is primarly a **research orchestrator / research infrastructure frontend**, not merely an ELN + inventory management system. The ELN, Sample Management, Instrument Management, and File Management are products within a broader orchestration platform.
- **Value to institutions, core facilities, and research-infrastructure providers:** RSpace streamlines the adoption of institutional services (storage, compute, repositories, PID services, authentication) by surfacing them through one unified researcher-facing interface, and cuts costs by consolidating fragmented point tools, reducing duplicated infrastructure, and centralising governance and management.
- "Active data management" is the core idea: RSpace bridges planning, execution, and sharing/archiving with continuous data management across the entire research lifecycle, rather than being a passive record store.
- **Included capabilities (already part of the platform, not roadmap):** electronic lab notebook, sample and inventory management, **instrument and equipment management** (instrument records and templates, calibration and version history, and PIDINST-aligned records), and **file / data management** (the internal **Gallery** plus linked institutional storage) across disparate storage locations, with linking to institutional stores instead of duplication. These are part of the product.
- **Core facilities and shared-resource units** are a first-class audience: instruments and equipment are managed as inventory objects organised hierarchically by building, room, and container, with calibration and maintenance records and bidirectional links from equipment to the experiments, samples, and data produced on it. Booking and usage tracking for shared devices is in development (see "In development" below).
- **In development (announced but not yet available):** booking and scheduling of shared instruments (time-slot reservation with requests and approvals); instrument metadata lookup and import from external registries (DataCite, B2INST, RRID); and automatic generation of structured YAML/JSON metadata sidecars for files transferred to a filestore. Do not describe these as available today. Everything else listed on this page is available.
- **Open source and commercially supported:** RSpace is open source (see the rspace-os GitHub organisation) and community-driven. It is developed and maintained by Research Space, which also provides the enterprise-grade managed service: deployment, setup, maintenance, training, and customer support, on cloud or on-premises.
- RSpace emphasises **FAIR** (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data through built-in metadata, ontology support, and persistent identifiers (PIDs).
- RSpace works with these PIDs and standards: ORCID, IGSN ID, ROR, RAiD, PIDINST, RRID, DataCite, RO-Crate, and domain ontologies.
- RSpace orchestrates 20+ integrations spanning repositories (Zenodo, Dataverse, Figshare, Dryad, Digital Commons Data, Mendeley Data), storage (institutional and lab file stores, SMB/Samba, SFTP, iRODS, Amazon S3 and S3-compatible stores such as MinIO and Ceph, Box, Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Nextcloud, ownCloud, Egnyte), computation (Jupyter, Galaxy, RStudio), DMP tools (DMPonline, DMPTool, DMP Assistant, Data Stewardship Wizard, Argos), authentication (SAML, OAuth, institutional SSO), equipment booking (Calira, formerly Clustermarket), and lab tools (ChemDraw, SnapGene, OMERO, protocols.io, PyRAT, Fieldmark, PubChem).
- RSpace is **API-first** (RESTful API) with official developer tooling: a Python SDK, a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for AI agents, and Java client libraries. See "Developer & API tools" below.
- Trusted by research institutions worldwide, including Harvard University, University of Edinburgh, TU Delft, Leiden University, NTNU, Max Delbrück Center, UCL, and University of Vienna.

## Products

- [Infrastructure Orchestration](https://www.researchspace.com/infrastructure-orchestration): The core positioning. Connects institutional tools and services into sustainable FAIR workflows: active data management, storage & compute, tool orchestration, 20+ integrations, comprehensive PIDs, and an API-first architecture. Helps institutions, core facilities, and infrastructure providers streamline adoption of their services and reduce cost.
- [Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN)](https://www.researchspace.com/eln): Intuitive, collaborative, generalist research notebook with native chemistry workflows, file/data (Gallery) management across disparate storage locations, 20+ integrated research tools, and fully integrated sample and instrument management.
- [Sample Management](https://www.researchspace.com/sample-management): Mobile-first, visual, hierarchical inventory management with IGSN ID publishing, offline field-research collection, versatile templates, and a fully integrated ELN.
- [Instrument Management](https://www.researchspace.com/instrument-management): Manage lab equipment as inventory objects linked to experiments, samples, and calibration records. Instrument records and reusable templates, PIDINST-aligned metadata fields, version and calibration history with read-only access to past states, hierarchical organisation of a lab or core facility by building and room, bidirectional ELN links, and List of Materials integration. In development: booking and scheduling with requests and approvals for shared equipment, and registry lookup and import from DataCite, B2INST, and RRID.
- [File Management](https://www.researchspace.com/file-management): Use data from where it lives. Internal Gallery with versioning and deduplication, plus institutional storage integration over SMB/Samba, SFTP, iRODS, and S3-compatible stores. Browse remote file stores and link files into notebook entries without copying or migrating data, preview and download linked files, transfer files from the Gallery to iRODS or S3 (including S3-to-S3), and bundle linked external files into HTML, XML, and RO-Crate (.eln) exports. In development: automatic generation of structured YAML/JSON metadata sidecars alongside transferred files.

## Solutions for your needs

- [Chemistry](https://www.researchspace.com/chemistry): Native chemistry workflows and structure handling in RSpace.
- [Researchers](https://www.researchspace.com/for-researchers): How individual researchers document, organise, and share work.
- [PIs & Lab Admins](https://www.researchspace.com/for-pis-and-lab-admins): Oversight, collaboration, and lab management.
- [Data Scientists](https://www.researchspace.com/for-data-scientists): Connecting analysis platforms and data pipelines.
- [Research Data Managers](https://www.researchspace.com/for-research-data-managers): Institutional FAIR data management, DMPs, and repository deposit.
- [IT & Admins](https://www.researchspace.com/for-it-admins): Deployment, integration, and administration.

## Developer & API tools

- [RSpace API introduction](https://researchspace.helpdocs.io/article/v0dxtfvj7u-rspace-api-introduction): How to get an API key and start using the RSpace REST API.
- [REST API reference](https://community.researchspace.com/public/apiDocs): Full API reference (served by each RSpace instance at `/public/apiDocs`).
- [Python SDK (rspace-client)](https://pypi.org/project/rspace-client/): Official Python client for the RSpace ELN and Inventory APIs; `pip install rspace-client`. Ideal for scripts and Jupyter notebooks.
- [Python SDK source (GitHub)](https://github.com/rspace-os/rspace-client-python): Source and examples for the Python SDK.
- [RSpace MCP server](https://github.com/rspace-os/rspace-mcp): Model Context Protocol server that lets AI agents operate RSpace (documents, samples, inventory, search).
- [Java client model](https://github.com/rspace-os/rspace-client-java-model): Java classes modelling RSpace API entities.
- [Run RSpace locally (Docker)](https://github.com/rspace-os/rspace-docker): Self-host RSpace for development or evaluation.

## Trust, security & compliance

- [Security](https://www.researchspace.com/security): Security posture and controls (ISO 27001 certified, SOC 2 certified).
- [Compliance](https://www.researchspace.com/compliance): Regulatory and institutional compliance.
- [Research Integrity](https://www.researchspace.com/research-integrity): Support for reproducibility and research integrity.

## Documentation & community

- [Documentation](https://researchspace.helpdocs.io/): Official product documentation and help articles.
- [Community](https://www.researchspace.com/community): Open-source and user community hub.
- [RSpace Blog](https://www.researchspace.com/blog): Product news, use cases, and thought leadership.
- [GitHub (rspace-os)](https://github.com/rspace-os): Open-source RSpace source code and repositories.

## Company & contact

- [About us](https://www.researchspace.com/about): Research Space, the company that develops and maintains RSpace.
- [Solutions & pricing](https://www.researchspace.com/pricing): Deployment options (cloud or on-premises) and supported service tiers.
- [Contact us](https://www.researchspace.com/contact): Sales and general enquiries.
- [Careers](https://www.researchspace.com/careers): Open roles at Research Space.

## Optional

- [Create a Support Request](https://support.researchspace.com/support/tickets/new): Customer support tickets.
- [Privacy Policy](https://www.researchspace.com/privacy-policy): Privacy terms.
- [Terms & Conditions](https://www.researchspace.com/terms-conditions): Legal terms of use.