Become a Member
Ekayana is a non-profit, membership governed organization running sovereign identifier infrastructure for research and heritage data. Any research organization, whether university, repository, library, archive, or company, is eligible to join, use the infrastructure, and vote on where it goes next.
Infrastructure your community owns
Persistent identifiers only work when the organization behind them outlives any single vendor. Ekayana is funded by annual membership and volume tiered service fees rather than per-identifier sales, so members collectively sustain the did:bio registry, IPFS pinning, and the knowledge graph as shared, GDPR compliant infrastructure under European data sovereignty principles.
Public resolution and open metadata are available to everyone, member or not. Membership is how organizations register at scale, integrate deeply, and take part in governance. Members register did:bio identifiers anchored on the Solana registry, keep data content addressed on IPFS, and let BioAgents extract the metadata that powers discovery across the network.
Ekayana complements DOI infrastructure rather than replacing it. Through the Dataverse and Zenodo bridges, datasets keep their DOIs while gaining decentralized, verifiable identifiers. Explore the full picture on Services and Use Cases or in the documentation.
Four ways to participate
Choose the shape of membership that fits how your organization works: directly, through a group, or as a supporter of the mission.
Institutional Member
Universities, repositories, libraries, archives, companies
A single organization using Ekayana infrastructure directly: registering did:bio identifiers, pinning data to IPFS, and running BioAgents under its own account in the Ekayana Console.
Fee: $2,000 / year, plus an annual service fee for infrastructure use.
Consortium Lead
National networks, shared platforms, library alliances
A lead organization coordinating a shared membership for a group. The lead handles administration and billing so smaller organizations can participate without individual overhead.
Fee: $2,000 / year, paid by the lead on behalf of the consortium.
Consortium Organization
Institutions joining through an existing consortium
An organization that uses Ekayana infrastructure through its consortium rather than holding a direct membership. This is the simplest way in for departments, museums, and smaller repositories.
Fee: No membership fee of its own. Cost sharing is set by the consortium.
Supporting Member
Funders, societies, mission aligned organizations
Funds the mission and participates in governance without using the infrastructure. Supporting Members help keep sovereign identifier infrastructure open for the whole research community.
Fee: $2,000 / year; no service fee, since no infrastructure is used.
See the full fee schedule for service fees, volume tiers, and storage add-ons.
What membership unlocks
Every paid member type gets the same two things: production access to the infrastructure, and a seat in the community that governs it.
Infrastructure access
- DID registrations
- Register did:bio identifiers through the Ekayana Console and REST API. DID document, Solana registry anchoring, metadata record, and resolver availability are all included.
- Metadata insights
- Knowledge-graph views over your records: coverage, completeness, and the connections BioAgents extract across datasets, researchers, and institutions.
- Citation and usage reports
- See how your identifiers resolve and how your outputs are reused, including datasets that keep their DOIs through the Dataverse and Zenodo bridges.
- Member only APIs
- Authenticated endpoints for registration, BioAgents processing, and IPFS pinning, with UCAN capability based authorization for fine grained delegation.
Community and governance
- Prioritized, tailored support
- Direct access to the Ekayana team for integration work, from Bio-DID-Sequencer deployments to repository bridges and GDPR data sovereignty reviews.
- Member only trainings and events
- Workshops and briefings on did:bio, metadata practice, and the platform roadmap, built for repository managers, librarians, and research engineers.
- Steering groups and communities of practice
- Working groups where members shape the metadata schema, resolver behavior, and integration priorities alongside peer institutions.
- Governance participation and voting
- Ekayana is a non-profit governed by its members. Every paid member votes on the direction of the infrastructure it depends on.
The Researcher tier: a free, open on-ramp
Individual researchers do not need a membership to start. The free Researcher tier is Ekayana's open front door: try the platform today, and bring your institution when you are ready to scale.
Researcher
FreeSign in to the Ekayana Console, mint did:bio identifiers for your datasets, and run basic BioAgents extraction. No institution, no fee. The Researcher tier is not a membership and carries no governance rights; it exists so the on-ramp to decentralized identifiers stays open to everyone.
- Public did:bio resolution: open to everyone
- Up to 100 did:bio registrations per year
- 5 GB of pinned IPFS storage
- Basic BioAgents metadata extraction
From inquiry to onboarding in five steps
Joining is a conversation, not a checkout flow. Applications are reviewed within one week, and onboarding is customized to your organization.
Start with an inquiry
Tell us about your organization and what you want to register. A few minutes on the membership inquiry form is enough to begin.
Consultation with the community team
We walk through your use case together: direct membership or consortium, expected did:bio volume, storage needs, and repository integrations.
Short application
A brief formal application confirms the details. Applications are reviewed within one week.
Executive Board approval
The Executive Board confirms new members, the final formal step before onboarding begins.
Customized onboarding
You get Ekayana Console access, API credentials, and an onboarding plan tailored to your workflows, so your first did:bio registrations happen in days, not months.
Simple, transparent fees
One flat annual membership fee across member types, plus a volume tiered service fee for organizations that use the infrastructure. There are no per-DID charges.
| Member type | Annual membership fee |
|---|---|
| Institutional Member | $2,000 |
| Consortium Lead | $2,000 |
| Consortium Organization | $0 (cost sharing set by the consortium) |
| Supporting Member | $2,000 |
Infrastructure users also pay an annual service fee: $200-$700 for non-profit organizations depending on socioeconomic context, revenue tiered for for-profit organizations, covering up to 100,000 did:bio registrations per year and 100 GB of pinned IPFS storage. Global Access Program adjustments apply for low and middle income economies. See the full fee schedule.
Join the founding network
Bring your organization into the community building sovereign identifier infrastructure for research. Start the conversation today.