HASTAC

What HASTAC does

HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory) is a non-profit academic social network founded in 2002 and co-founded by Cathy N. Davidson. The organization operates as part of the Knowledge Commons network and positions itself as the world's first and oldest academic social network, serving faculty, researchers, graduate students, and scholars across the humanities, arts, sciences, and technology disciplines. Its primary value proposition is enabling free, interdisciplinary scholarly collaboration, blogging, and group formation beyond traditional institutional boundaries.

The platform, HASTAC Commons, is built on Commons in a Box, a WordPress-based multi-site framework, and is organized across six theme sites covering Publishing & Archives, Educational & Cultural Institutions, Social & Political Issues, Teaching & Learning Practices, Humanities/Arts/Media, and Technology/Networks/Sciences. Specialized sub-products include the HASTAC Scholars program for graduate students, Digital Fridays event series, Collaborative Book Reviews, Scholar Spotlights, a Jobs and Opportunities board, and a Getting Started Guide. Recent content additions include the "Intelligent Artifice" blog series on AI and society, and the 2026-2027 Scholars cohort with 36 new members.

HASTAC operates on a freemium model with all membership tiers offered at no cost. As a non-profit, the organization appears to be funded through institutional support and grants rather than commercial revenue. Its go-to-market motion is community-led, relying on academic conferences, the cohort-based Scholars program, virtual events such as Digital Fridays, organic social media presence on Bluesky, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and word-of-mouth within the academic community. The platform is globally accessible via self-serve registration.

Name

HASTAC

Website

https://hastac.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2002

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

HASTAC is a non-profit academic social network founded in 2002, providing a free WordPress-based platform for interdisciplinary scholarly collaboration, blogging, and group formation across humanities, arts, science, and technology, operating under the Knowledge Commons network.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Academic Social Network

NAICS

Business Associations (813910), Educational Services (611), Educational Support Services (611710), Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services (5192)

SIC

Services-Membership Organizations (8600), Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Peer Feedback, Discussion Forums & Social Learning Communities (EDAFAGAH)

akta.pro secondary industries

Membership Communities with Learning (Community-Led Education) (MPACALAF), Scholarly Societies & Conference Proceedings Publishing (MPAJABAK), Scholarly Society & Association Publishing (EDAGAFAK), Academic & Scientific Conferences (MPAGAGAD), Humanities & Arts Scholarly Publishing (EDAGAFAE)

Keywords

• Academic social network
• Scholarly collaboration platform
• Digital humanities community
• Interdisciplinary research network
• Academic networking platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Tempe

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Institutional/Grant Funding: As a non-profit academic initiative, HASTAC operates as part of the Knowledge Commons network and appears to be funded through institutional support and grants rather than commercial revenue streams. The platform is free for members to join and use.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

HASTAC operates HASTAC Commons, a free WordPress-based academic social network built on the Commons in a Box platform, where scholars, faculty, and students post blogs, form groups, leave comments, and collaborate across humanities, arts, science, and technology disciplines. The platform is organized into six theme sites covering Publishing & Archives, Educational & Cultural Institutions, Social & Political Issues, Teaching & Learning, Humanities & Arts, and Technology & Sciences. The HASTAC Scholars program provides a dedicated sub-network for graduate students featuring workshops, collaborative book reviews, scholar spotlights, and Digital Fridays events.

Product overview

HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory) operates as a unified academic social network platform called HASTAC Commons, which is built on the Commons in a Box platform. The network comprises one primary platform for member engagement and a specialized HASTAC Scholars sub-network for graduate student development. Content is organized across six distinct theme sites covering Publishing & Archives, Educational & Cultural Institutions, Social & Political Issues, Teaching & Learning Practices, Humanities & Arts & Media, and Technology & Networks & Sciences. Additional features include a Getting Started Guide, Digital Fridays events, Collaborative Book Reviews, and a Jobs and Opportunities board. The platform positions itself as the world's first and oldest academic social network, enabling members to post blogs, form groups, and collaborate.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• HASTAC Scholars: A program under HASTAC that facilitates collaboration and professional development among scholars, featuring workshops, collaborative book reviews, and scholar spotlights.

Products and services

• HASTAC Commons A free WordPress-based academic social network platform built on Commons in a Box, enabling scholars, faculty, researchers, and students to post blogs, leave comments, form groups, and collaborate across humanities, arts, science, and technology disciplines. Content is organized into six theme sites covering Publishing & Archives, Educational & Cultural Institutions, Social & Political Issues, Teaching & Learning, Humanities & Arts, and Technology & Sciences.
• HASTAC Scholars A sub-network within HASTAC focused on facilitating collaboration and professional development among graduate students, featuring workshops, collaborative book reviews, scholar spotlights, Digital Fridays events, and dialogues. The 2026-2027 cohort welcomed 36 new members.

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature1 record

Partnerships

Six partnerships are on record, tiered minor.

• ARLIS/NA (Art Libraries Society of North America)minorOthersAffiliate society partner within the Knowledge Commons network. ARLIS/NA maintains a site on the HASTAC/HC platform for its members.
• AUPresses (Association of University Presses)minorOthersAffiliate partner representing university presses within the Knowledge Commons network.
• MLA (Modern Language Association)minorOthersAffiliate society partner within the Knowledge Commons network for language and literature scholars.
• SAH (Society of Architectural Historians)minorOthersAffiliate society partner within the Knowledge Commons network for architectural history community.
• STEM Ed+minorOthersAffiliate partner focused on STEM education within the Knowledge Commons network.
• MSU (Michigan State University)minorOthersInstitutional partner maintaining presence on Knowledge Commons platform.

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• JSTOR: JSTOR is a major digital library and academic content platform serving humanities and social science scholars. It overlaps with HASTAC's humanities/scholar audience but focuses on archival scholarly content distribution rather than social networking and peer community formation.
• arXiv: arXiv is the dominant open-access preprint repository serving physics, mathematics, computer science, and increasingly interdisciplinary scholarship. It overlaps with HASTAC's science and technology audience but focuses on preprint sharing rather than social networking.
• SSRN (Social Science Research Network): SSRN is an established preprint and scholarly community platform operated by Elsevier. It serves overlapping academic audiences (especially social sciences and humanities) and provides community features that compete with HASTAC's networking and discussion functions.
• The Conversation: The Conversation is a large-scale academic-authored publishing platform that connects scholars with public audiences. It overlaps with HASTAC's publishing and discourse-oriented mission but operates at much greater scale and with a public-facing journalism model rather than peer-community networking.

Direct peers

• ResearchGate: ResearchGate is a leading academic social network for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask questions, and find collaborators. It directly competes with HASTAC for academic mindshare, though it skews STEM whereas HASTAC emphasizes humanities, arts, and interdisciplinary work.
• Academia.edu: Academia.edu is a large-scale academic social networking platform where scholars share papers and connect. It directly competes with HASTAC Commons for the same scholar persona, though it operates as a commercial freemium product rather than a non-profit.
• Humanities Commons / Knowledge Commons: Humanities Commons is the parent network that hosts HASTAC Commons and other affiliate society sites (MLA Commons, AUPresses). It shares the same technology stack (Commons in a Box) and serves overlapping humanities scholar audiences, making it both infrastructure and a sibling platform.
• MLA Commons: MLA Commons is the Modern Language Association's hosted community on the Knowledge Commons platform. It shares the same tech stack, member model, and humanities scholar audience as HASTAC, with thematic overlap in language, literature, and digital humanities.

Others

• Zotero: Zotero is a widely used open-source reference management and scholarly collaboration tool. It shares HASTAC's open, academic, humanities-friendly ethos and overlaps with graduate-student scholar workflows, though it focuses on citation and research tooling rather than social networking.

Emerging players

• Mastodon (academic instances): Decentralized academic instances like scholar.social on Mastodon offer federated social networking for researchers. They compete for academic community attention and discourse, especially among tech-forward humanities/STS scholars, though with different UX and discovery mechanics.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/hastac
• Instagraminstagram.com/hastac_official
• Xx.com/hastac

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about HASTAC