MetadatappMetadatappOpen Source
Open Source

About Metadatapp

Metadatapp is an open-source project building research-grade FAIR metadata infrastructure for preclinical and laboratory research.

✦FAIR by design✦JSON-LD / RO-Crate✦Self-hostable AGPL-3.0

Project focus

Maintainers

Metadatapp is maintained as open-source infrastructure for FAIR experimental metadata.

Run the project

Explore the demo, inspect the code, and self-host the stack when you need to evaluate it.

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Security & Governance

Read about the self-hosted deployment model and data controls.

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The Team

Damien Huzard

Damien Huzard

Creator & maintainer

15 years in preclinical research and behavioral neuroscience. Creator of Metadatapp. Leads open-source development with an AI agent toolchain, working at the intersection of behavior, physiology, and data science.

Laurent Huzard

Laurent Huzard

Backend Expert & API Platform Initiator

Initiated and architected the Metadatapp API platform; backend expert who designs the system architecture, hardens code, and builds reusable modules for solid, scalable delivery.

The Story behind Metadatapp

After 15 years in preclinical research, Damien felt the absence of a tool that could properly structure and connect experimental metadata. Metadatapp was built to fix that gap.

The original backend — the Symfony/API Platform architecture the project runs on today — was built by Laurent Huzard, who also taught Damien enough of the craft to carry it forward. Warm thanks go to Frédéric Deverre for early strategic conversations that helped clarify what Metadatapp should and should not try to be.

The technical and scientific mission continues as open source (AGPL-3.0), driven by Damien with the help of an AI agent toolchain — opened so the community can inspect, run, extend, and preserve the work.

Our Vision for the Future of Science

Scientific data that is structured at capture, shareable without cleanup, and machine-readable by default. By building on open standards — JSON-LD, RO-Crate, ARRIVE — and releasing the platform as open source, Metadatapp lets any lab, institution, or developer run, extend, and contribute to better research data infrastructure.

Better structured data is also better for the animals involved: when experiments can be reused and compared without repeating, science advances with less.