Meta Transition

Meta.org will sunset March 31, 2022

At CZI, we work in areas where we think we can have an outsized impact through technology development, interdisciplinary research collaborations, and partnerships.

With Meta, our goal was to give researchers, patient communities, science societies, and research organizations more ways to discover the research they need. We did this by mapping biomedical knowledge to help researchers learn a new area or keep up-to-date in a field through precise and flexible feed design, personalized ranking, and surfacing the broadest array of research outputs.

We recognize that Meta is one of many discovery tools available to the research community operating in a complex ecosystem. Since its transition from beta to a public release in fall 2019, more organizations and communities have entered the research discovery space, and they are already exploring and experimenting with new technologies to enhance discovery and keep current with research.

Five years into our journey at CZI Science, we have learned more about what approaches we should be taking to have an outsized impact in the field. We believe that our CZI Science Technology team is best positioned to meet the needs of the research community by focusing its work across more specifically defined domains, including infectious disease, imaging, and single-cell biology. By focusing our CZI Science Technology team in these domain areas, we will bring more immediate value to the field and have greater opportunity for outsized impact, ultimately bringing us closer to our shared mission to support the science and technology that will make it possible to cure, prevent, or manage all disease by the end of the century.

As part of this transition, the technology powering Meta will remain available to the community; we will support access to the Meta application and associated services, including the Digests and API, through March 31, 2022. We will also support our users’ transition to alternative open services.

We are grateful to everyone who contributed to this project over the years and look forward to continuing to work in partnership with the scientific community to accelerate science.

Frequently Asked Questions

When will Meta officially sunset?

Meta will sunset on March 31, 2022 at 12 pm PT. The sunset includes all functions on Meta.org and all Meta email digests. Support structures such as the Helpdesk will also be sunset.

Why is Meta sunsetting?

In summer 2021, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative made the decision to focus our Science Technology efforts on priority areas where we believe that the team can make an outsized impact building tools in collaboration with the scientific community, including in our imaging, single-cell biology, and infectious disease programs. More information can be found here. As part of this strategic focus, the team will implement a coordinated sunset of Meta.org and its email digests on March 31, 2022. We plan to support our users’ transition to alternative open services.

How can I continue to keep abreast of the scientific developments and research outputs?

We recognize there are myriad tools available to search and explore scientific literature. In recent months, CZI has also established partnerships with two third-party tools with similar mission to enable access to scientific developments:

• Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered academic search engine with more than 200 million papers covering all disciplines. Features include research feeds with personalized recommendations, a library to save and organize your papers, and author and citation alerts.
• Europe PMC offers search filtering by category, includes preprints and patents, a data section with link to source data, annotations, and reviews from expert sources.
• The Lens is a free and open tool that allows users to access , analyze and manage patent and scholarly data. The mission of The Lens is to remove obstacles to innovation, so making it easier for researchers and innovators to build on previous work

Please note that your use of any of these services will be governed by their respective terms and policies.

What will happen to personalized user Feeds & Concepts:

What will happen to the user’s Library?

We have an integration with Mendeley so users can sync their libraries. Alternatively users can manually copy and paste their library content to other services.

What will happen to the user’s profile information?

All user profile information will be deleted.

What will happen to the user’s Feeds?

Users can manually copy and paste their feed from Meta.

What will happen to collections in Discover?

We will make the curated feed collections in Discover open to anyone who is interested to download. Please check back for details.

What happens to user information?

Upon Meta’s sunset, user accounts and any personally identifiable data (e.g., user name, account name, email, institution, account activities) associated with accounts will be deleted. Users who would like to save a record of their feeds, libraries, profile info, records in their account and any other content the users may have shared with Meta should do so before 12pm PT, March 31, 2022.

Is Facebook’s rebrand related to the decision to sunset Meta?

No. This decision was made by our Technology team in the summer of 2021 based on our learning of the past five years. In that time, we have learned more about what approaches we should be taking to have an outsized impact in the field. By focusing our CZI Science Technology team in infectious disease, imaging, and single-cell biology, we will bring more immediate value to the field and have greater opportunity for outsized impact, ultimately bringing us closer to our shared mission to support the science and technology that will make it possible to cure, prevent, or manage all disease by the end of the century.