We're excited to share a new round of updates designed to improve collaboration, transparency, and usability across Zenodo and the EU Open Research Repository (EOR).

Improved record deposits

We've introduced updates to simplify the deposition and publication process:

• You can now request a storage quota increase directly during record deposition, making it easier to manage larger datasets. See the Manage quota documentation page for more information.
• When editing a published record and changing files, you will now see remaining days left to publish. See the Modify files after publication documentation page for more information.
• In the deposit form, the "Creators" section has been renamed to "Creators/Authors" for improved clarity when uploading datasets or publications.

Zenodo deposit form file upload section with the new quota increase feature

Enhanced commenting and discussion

When reviewing submissions, engaging with other users is now more seamless and interactive:

• The new threaded comments feature is now available, enabling to reply to specific comments in a clearer and more structured way.
• You can now include mathematical equations when writing comments.
• Each comment now has its own persistent direct link (permalink), making it easy to share and reference specific points in discussions.
• You can now attach files to each comment, such as inline images or other support material.
• From the published record landing page, the new link "View comments", in the "Communites" side panel, makes it easier to access to the submission review page.
• Community managers can now lock conversations and disable the addition of new comments, ensuring better moderation and control when needed.

Improved discovery and filtering

Finding relevant research is now faster and more intuitive. In the search page:

• The new sorting option "Most downloaded" helps finding impactful records.
• The new "Publication date" filter allows for more precise search refinement.

Zenodo search page with new publication date facet

Metadata standardization for theses and dissertations

To enhance interoperability and align with the DataCite schema, we are standardizing the resource type for theses.

We recently identified an unnecessary distinction between “Thesis” and “Dissertation” in our metadata model. The user interface will now only display "Thesis" as an option, while internally, all records will use the DataCite-compliant "Dissertation" type. Existing DOIs will be updated to reflect this change, by converting the custom metadata:

  "types": {
    "resourceType": "Thesis",
    "resourceTypeGeneral": "Text"
  }

to the standard DataCite representation:

  "types": {
    "resourceTypeGeneral": "Dissertation"
  }

For API usage, we will maintain backward compatibility. The custom value “publication-thesis” will still be accepted, but it will be automatically converted internally to “publication-dissertation”.

New integration in OpenAIRE

In OpenAIRE CONNECT and EXPLORE, you can now upload the Open Access version of a publication to Zenodo in a very easy way. To discover the feature, read the related OpenAIRE blog post.

Share your feedback

These updates are part of our ongoing commitment to support open science and foster better collaboration across the research community. We encourage you to explore these new features and continue sharing your valuable feedback!

Share your feedback: help us by answering the EU Open Research Repository (EOR) Survey! The survey is open to all Zenodo users. Your input is essential to help us better understand your needs and guide future improvements. We encourage you to take a few minutes to share your feedback and contribute to shaping the platform.

Upcoming webinar: The EOR will also be presented during OAPEN EU Project: Insights from EU-Funded Authors Webinar on Tuesday 21 April 2026, 14:00 – 15:15 CEST. Registration is open here!

Stay Connected & Informed:

• Subscribe to our newsletter.
• Explore the updated documentation pages.

Thank you for being part of Zenodo!

Over the past months, many of you have experienced periods of slowness and occasional service interruptions on Zenodo. We would like to explain the current situation and outline the steps we are taking to address it.

Increased traffic and automated access

Zenodo traffic has increased significantly, not only from human users but also from automated systems, including bots, harvesters for AI and people using AI. These systems generate a sustained and aggressive load on the platform. Many of these automated systems do not respect our rate limits and actively try to circumvent them, creating additional strain. On average, we now observe around 180 requests per second. At peak times during working hours, this can easily reach 250 requests per second and more. The current Zenodo infrastructure was designed based on the traffic patterns observed during the migration to the next-generation platform, InvenioRDM, in 2023, when the load was lower and more predictable.

This affects both browsing and file transfers, resulting in slower uploads and downloads, as well as occasional unavailability. Basic mitigation techniques such as blocking and rate limiting are no longer sufficient on their own. More advanced traffic management and protection mechanisms are required, together with infrastructure upgrades.

Planned improvements

In the coming weeks, we will progressively upgrade the platform and deploy additional mitigation measures to better handle the increased load and reduce the impact of abusive or malicious traffic. These changes will be rolled out step by step in order to preserve service continuity.

During this period, we kindly ask for your patience. At the moment, support requests related to performance issues or temporary slowness are difficult to address individually, as the root causes are already identified and are being handled at the infrastructure level.

As Zenodo grows, our support team is receiving more support requests than ever. While we work through these requests, the fastest way to find a solution is often through our Help Portal and FAQs. We've designed these resources to give you instant answers to common questions so you can get back to your research without the wait.

We will keep you informed of major developments and improvements as they are deployed.

As always, Zenodo remains committed to its core mission of supporting open science, reserving research outputs, and providing reliable access to research for the global community. Ensuring that research remains open, accessible, and reusable continues to guide our technical and operational decisions.

Thank you for your understanding and for your continued use of Zenodo.

As Zenodo continues to grow, we're taking steps to keep the service fast and reliable for everyone. Over the past year, we've seen a sharp rise in aggressive and covert harvesting activity targeting our search endpoints, and often at volumes that disrupt normal use. Our team has been blocking misbehaving clients on an almost daily basis to maintain stability for researchers who rely on Zenodo for browsing, searching, and depositing their work. As these attacks have intensified, we're introducing new rate limits on our records search API to help protect the platform and ensure fair access for all users.

What's changing?

Starting today, we're enforcing the following limits on our records search endpoints:

• Page sizes: Maximum 25 results per page for anonymous requests, 100 results per page for authenticated requests
• Request frequency: Maximum 30 requests per minute (for both anonymous and authenticated users)

These limits ensure that Zenodo remains responsive for everyone. The higher page limit for authenticated requests also allows us to contact users if we notice usage patterns that our other APIs could better serve.

Why these changes?

Our infrastructure prioritizes researchers who are searching, browsing, and discovering content on Zenodo. But we've seen automated systems request very large amounts of data very quickly (up to 500 requests per second), which uses up resources and slows things down for everyone else.

After analysing current access patterns, we designed these new limits to accommodate typical use cases. If you're just searching for related work, browsing records, or managing your community, you won't notice a difference.

Better alternatives for bulk data access

If you've built scripts, applications, or integrations using the search API for bulk harvesting, or need large amounts of Zenodo metadata (to build indexes, perform analysis, or keep external systems synchronized), we highly recommend using the following methods:

• OAI-PMH: A standardized protocol for harvesting metadata and keeping systems synchronized with repositories like Zenodo. It supports incremental updates (only fetching what's new or changed), filtering by community, and multiple metadata formats. OAI-PMH delivers 50 records per page and has the same 30 requests per minute limit.
• Metadata dumps: Monthly exports of all Zenodo metadata that you can download and process on your own systems. This is the most efficient way to access bulk metadata, especially if you need to analyze large portions of Zenodo's content. The dumps are available in DataCite XML and JSON formats.

Looking ahead

We're working to scale Zenodo sustainably while keeping the service responsive and user-friendly. We'll closely monitor how these changes perform and make adjustments if needed. As the threat landscape is evolving rapidly, we are very likely to introduce further mitigation measures in the future.

If you have questions regarding these changes, or need help transitioning to OAI-PMH or metadata dumps, please contact our support team.