The infrastructure that turns a federation of into a research institution.
SYFERS is what holds the federation's evidence: methodology that describes how Labs work, tools that record what Labs do, and a public repository where the records become citable. Three layers, one purpose. If a single Lab cannot prove its practice, a federation can.
§ Who you are
SYFERS reads differently depending on why you are here. Three doors, the same infrastructure.
For those who practice SYFERS daily
Daily practice becomes legible to institutions without extra work. What sits in an alternative corner can, through these instruments, be brought into the system.
Jump to §03 for Lab members →For those who want to study the federation
Open data, documented methodology, citable records. Per-Lab and federation-wide. No paywall, no login.
Jump to §03 for researchers →For cooperatives considering joining
Not reporting on top, but registration as a byproduct of being a Lab. The threshold, and what you get in return.
Read Become a Lab →§ Compass
Compass lets a Lab place itself, for each of the sixteen SYFERS conditions, on one of four levels: absent, emerging, established, embedded.
Nobody scores anyone. The Lab tells itself the truth about where it is, in the same words every other Lab uses.
Because every Lab uses the same sixteen conditions, what one Lab learns becomes legible to the others. A Lab that has worked through embedded on one condition can show what that asked, in practice. Maturity grows by reading each other, not by being ranked.
§ 01, Three layers
Each layer is necessary. None of the layers is sufficient on its own.
The framework · Methodology
How a Lab counts as a Lab.
The research discipline behind Living Lab work. How decisions are recorded, how soil is sampled, how members are tracked, how reproducibility is preserved. Built against the specifications of EU research frameworks (ORRI, Horizon Europe Cluster 6) so that what Labs do is what funders and researchers can read.
The tools · Two surfaces
Where Labs do the work.
chart.syfers.eu is the Lab tool: members, decisions, plant register, energy data, project log. lens.syfers.eu is the Document Intelligence platform: archive, drafting, consent-based proposals. Together they turn daily practice into structured evidence, in real time, without extra effort.
The repository · Public output
Where the work becomes citable.
Every record the tools generate flows into a public repository at syfers.eu. Researchers can access it and cite it. Stakeholders can read it. Funders can verify it. The repository is the layer that makes the federation visible to the outside world as something other than a brochure.
A single can describe what it does, but it cannot prove much. Its results sit in a folder, its decisions in a chat, its handbook on a shared drive that almost nobody reads. It can speak; it cannot be cited.
A federation of Labs that all register their practice the same way produces something different: a corpus. Patterns across Labs become visible. Outliers become questions. Methodology becomes testable. The same framework that governs daily registration also governs reporting to funders, to researchers, to whoever asks. One stream of work, multiple audiences.
SYFERS is what allows a federation of small projects to act like a research institution, without becoming one.
The federation does not own a building or hold a patent. What it owns is the framework, the tools, and the repository. That is enough. Researchers can study the corpus. Other federations can adopt the framework. Labs can leave with their data intact. Nobody is held captive by infrastructure they did not help build.
§ 03, Who uses it
What Labs need from SYFERS is different from what researchers need. Both are served by the same layers.
For Labs
What this instrument structurally makes possible: your work does not have to change to become legible to institutions. The regenerative work you do, the decisions you take in Council, the plants you register, the harvests you count, this is brought by SYFERS into a form that EU frameworks, researchers and funders can read. Not by adapting your work. By registering your work as it is.
Member Labs use the two tools as the working infrastructure of the cooperative. The framework keeps registration consistent across Labs; the repository turns the records into something stakeholders, funders, and researchers can read. The Lab does its work; the work registers itself.
What SYFERS structurally does: work that sits in an alternative corner can, through these instruments, be brought into the system. Not as compromise. As hybrid strategy. Becoming mainstream without losing the regenerative substance. This is no accident. It is what the instrument was built to make possible.
How your name stays protected
What goes out is the work, not who does the work. Names of members and participants are, at document generation, automatically translated to their role: facilitator, member, with a number when there are several. It happens without extra work; it is how SYFERS drives the publication layer.
Under the hood, this is how it works. SYFERS holds two repositories: a private repo where Lab members register their work with the names they use internally, and a public repo where only the anonymised version appears. The translation from names to roles happens between the two. Lab members see both. Researchers and the public see only the second.
Private — within the Lab
Public — open repo
Between the two
For researchers
Universities, policy researchers, philanthropic evaluators, and independent journalists can read the federation's evidence directly. The methodology is documented; the data is structured; citations are durable. What you find is reproducible because the framework is public.
Editorial offering · Depth
For those who practice SYFERS from the Lab, it sometimes feels like tension between two worlds. The world where you work daily, with land, body, rhythm, lived knowing. And the world the instrument comes from, with data, registration, legibility for institutions.
That tension is no accident. We have described it in an editorial essay. SYFERS sits at the crossing of what researchers call boundary objects: instruments that work in two paradigms at the same time. Their productivity comes precisely from that position. Not despite the tension, but because the tension is held.
If you are curious where this work stands in a wider field, or why the federation chooses this hybrid form rather than withdrawing or institutionalising, read on.
→ Read The two cultures§ 04 · Patterns
Patterns is the set of criteria that SYFERS uses for analysis. It is the operational subset of The Lens, the editorial reference at /lens. Patterns holds the Lens entries that are workable within app context, with weights set per Council or per analysis.
When a Lab runs an analysis, it picks from Patterns which criteria are relevant for that specific analysis, and sets weights. SYFERS reads the registered data through these criteria, from the perspective documented in The Lens.
Patterns evolves with the federation. When a new Lens entry is deemed operational by the Council, it is added to Patterns. When a Lens entry does not lend itself to app analysis (for example because it asks for qualitative judgement that does not tolerate quantification), it remains in The Lens as editorial reference but not in Patterns.
§ 05, Continue at syfers.eu
This page tells you what SYFERS is. The framework, the tools, and the repository all live on their own surface. Three doors, one infrastructure.
The hub
Framework & repository.
The methodology in detail, the public record of every member Lab, ORRI mapping, and access points to the open data. Start here if you are new.
Lab tool
Daily registration for Labs.
Where members are added, decisions logged, plants tracked, and data published to the public repository. Members of federation Labs sign in here.
Document Intelligence
Archive, drafts, proposals.
The shared document desk. Search every minute, draft new documents in house style, and run consent-based proposals with stand-aside, object, and a clean decision trail.
SYFERS is built and maintained by the federation, on behalf of its Labs and the researchers who study them. Open source. Open data. No vendor.
§ 06, Where to next
If you are a researcher who wants to study the corpus, start at the hub. If you are a cooperative considering federation, read how SYFERS supports Labs in practice. If you want to understand the framework's roots, the federation's research programme begins with one paper.
Every layer is open. Nothing is paywalled. Nothing requires login to read.
§ Within the broader methodology
One of five boundary configurations the federation names. See boundary work for the broader methodology.
Read boundary work →§ Frequently asked questions for this page
No. What the federation publishes is anonymised. Names of members and participants are, at document generation, automatically translated to their role (facilitator, member, with a number when there are several). The work becomes visible; who does the work remains protected.
SYFERS holds two repositories: a private repo where the Lab works with the names used internally, and a public repo where only the anonymised version appears. Lab members see both. Researchers and the public see only the second.
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageFor most Lab members: between 5 and 15 minutes per day, depending on what happened that day. Recording a Council decision takes longer than a daily plant register.
SYFERS is built so that daily practice registers as a byproduct, not as an extra task. When you already note what you have planted, what you have harvested, what was decided in Council, SYFERS adds structure to what you already do. Lab members who structurally spend more time often find that their internal practice is not yet clear enough, not that SYFERS is too demanding.
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageConcrete personal data (your decisions, your contributions with attribution) stays within the Lab as internal record. The anonymised version remains in the public repo (because your role designation member 03 has already decoupled your work from your name).
For longer-term data treatment of departing members the federation has no final policy yet. When this becomes relevant for you, it can be addressed in Council. The 30-day clause is clear; what happens afterwards with data is weighed case by case.
Read more at /charter, or /research/syfers
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageEach SYFERS record has a citable URL with persistent identifier. Citation format: Lab name, Document title, SYFERS Repository, [URL], accessed [date].
For longitudinal or cross-Lab studies we also provide aggregated dataset citations. When your research reaches publication level and federation is a source, let us know so we can mutually reference.
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageCC BY-SA 4.0. That means: use freely, with attribution, and share derivative works under the same terms. No paywall, no login.
For commercial reuse the same licence applies, but we appreciate contact so we understand how federation data travels further. For academic use, citation is sufficient.
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageDirectly relevant: EU Mission Soil, Horizon Europe Cluster 6, New European Bauhaus, Portugal 2030, ENEI 2030, Algarve 2030, CLLD/LEADER, EAFRD, EIT Food. SYFERS methodology is built against ORRI specifications so that research can use federation data directly in Horizon applications.
For specific programmes and how the federation fits, we can think along case-specifically. We help Labs and partner organisations with applications where federation data or methodology is relevant.
Read more at /research/syfers, or /implementation-gap
→ See this answer on the central FAQ pageBecoming mainstream without losing the regenerative substance. The work that Sulitânia and other Labs do, regenerative living, consent-based governance, integral cooperative practice, sits in what institutions call an alternative corner. Through SYFERS and federation discipline this work becomes legible to EU frameworks, researchers and authorities without having to change its character.
Not as compromise. As hybrid strategy. The federation is built to make this possible: instruments that work in two paradigms at the same time (boundary objects in research language), so that regenerative work does not have to choose between staying authentic and becoming institutionally legible.
Read more at /research/two-cultures
→ See this answer on the central FAQ page