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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<title>BARN — Backbone for Agentic Research Networks</title>
<meta name="description" content="BARN is an open-source backbone for federated research data: publish a node, keep your data in place, and let the Almanac make it discoverable in plain language.">
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<meta property="og:description" content="Federated, AI-native data sharing. Data stays where it lives; only metadata travels.">
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<body>
<header>
<div class="bar">
<a class="brand" href="#top">
<img src="logo.svg" alt="">
<span class="rule"></span>
<span class="names">
<b>BARN</b>
<small>Backbone for Agentic Research Networks</small>
</span>
</a>
<nav>
<a href="#what">What it is</a>
<a href="#how">How it works</a>
<a href="#almanac">The Almanac</a>
<a href="#pilot">Pilot status</a>
<a href="#collaborators">Collaborators</a>
<a href="#contact">Contact</a>
</nav>
</div>
</header>
<div class="hero" id="top">
<div class="wrap">
<span class="pill"><span class="dot"></span> Early pilot · Public release coming</span>
<h1>Your data stays home. <em>Discovery goes everywhere.</em></h1>
<p>
BARN — the Backbone for Agentic Research Networks — is an open-source stack that lets any
research group publish its datasets as a node in a federated network. Metadata travels to a
shared catalog called the Almanac; the data itself never has to leave your infrastructure.
</p>
<div class="cta">
<a class="btn btn-primary" href="#what">See how BARN works</a>
<a class="btn btn-ghost" href="#contact">Join the pilot</a>
</div>
<div class="stats">
<div><div class="n">4</div><div class="l">pilot sites connected today</div></div>
<div><div class="n">3</div><div class="l">domains: agriculture, biomanufacturing, ecology</div></div>
<div><div class="n">1</div><div class="l">shared Almanac for discovery</div></div>
<div><div class="n">0</div><div class="l">datasets you have to move</div></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- ================= PROBLEM ================= -->
<section id="what">
<div class="wrap">
<p class="eyebrow">The problem</p>
<h2>Most research data is published, and still effectively invisible</h2>
<p class="lede">
Research data is exploding, but it sits in thousands of disconnected repositories that are hard
to discover, inspect, filter, or credit. A meta-study of corn and soybean publications from
2017–2022 found that fewer than 15% of full datasets are actually shared. Correlating two
sources from unrelated organizations is so obstacle-ridden that most experiments a researcher
imagines simply never happen.
</p>
<p class="lede">
The compute, the models, and the tooling are all ready. What is missing is the unglamorous
middle: discovery, access negotiation, filtering, provenance, and attribution. That is the gap
BARN closes — without asking anyone to hand over their data.
</p>
<div class="grid g3" style="margin-top:44px">
<div class="card navy">
<div class="ico">◇</div>
<h3>Federated, not another repository</h3>
<p>BARN builds no central data store. Each site runs its own node; only lightweight metadata flows upward. The central footprint stays small on purpose.</p>
</div>
<div class="card teal">
<div class="ico">◈</div>
<h3>Owners keep control</h3>
<p>Publish openly, or publish metadata only and approve access case by case. Private datasets never leave the host node — models come to the data instead.</p>
</div>
<div class="card">
<div class="ico">◉</div>
<h3>Runs on modest hardware</h3>
<p>A node fits on an off-the-shelf single-GPU workstation, and scales up to run alongside HPC systems like Delta and DeltaAI where the data already lives.</p>
</div>
<div class="card teal">
<div class="ico">✳</div>
<h3>Talk to your data</h3>
<p>Ask in plain language instead of guessing keywords. Open-weight LLMs hosted on BARN infrastructure narrow candidate datasets over the course of a conversation.</p>
</div>
<div class="card navy">
<div class="ico">↻</div>
<h3>Provenance by default</h3>
<p>Every access and training run is recorded, so a model carries the full list of datasets behind it — an AI bill of materials — and owners get verifiable credit.</p>
</div>
<div class="card">
<div class="ico"></></div>
<h3>Open source, community governed</h3>
<p>Released under a permissive license with an explicit patent grant, so academic and commercial users can build on and deploy it without legal encumbrance.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</section>
<!-- ================= HOW ================= -->
<section class="alt" id="how">
<div class="wrap">
<p class="eyebrow">How it works</p>
<h2>A network of Barns, a hierarchy of Almanacs</h2>
<p class="lede">
Publishing to BARN is meant to take an afternoon, not a grant. Install the stack, point it at
your datasets, and let it do the metadata work you would otherwise postpone until the end of
the project.
</p>
<ol class="flow" style="margin-top:40px">
<li>
<h3>Stand up a node</h3>
<p>Install the BARN stack on your own server and register it with an Almanac through a one-time handshake. No custom integration code.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>Metadata extracted for you</h3>
<p>BARN reads each dataset and generates standardized <strong>Croissant</strong> metadata automatically — reviewable and editable, so you stay the authority on your own data.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>Set the terms</h3>
<p>Choose open access or privacy-first: publish only the description while the dataset stays private, and grant access per request. CILogon handles identity.</p>
</li>
<li>
<h3>Get found, and cited</h3>
<p>Your listing becomes discoverable network-wide through natural-language search, with a DOI, funding attribution, and an audit trail of every use.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<figure class="figfull">
<div class="shot"><img src="architecture.png" alt="BARN architecture: a hierarchy of Almanacs, a network of Barns, the inside of a single Barn, and the chat flow from a researcher question to a grounded answer."></div>
<figcaption>The BARN platform architecture — Almanac hierarchy, node network, what lives inside one Barn, and the path a natural-language question takes to a grounded answer.</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
</section>
<!-- ================= ALMANAC ================= -->
<section id="almanac">
<div class="wrap">
<p class="eyebrow">The Almanac</p>
<h2>One place to ask, wherever the data actually lives</h2>
<div class="grid g2" style="align-items:start;margin-bottom:14px">
<div>
<p>
The Almanac is BARN's discovery layer: a catalog of the extracted Croissant metadata from
every dataset in the network. It holds enough to identify candidate datasets and their
owners; the detailed metadata back at the owning node then narrows the candidates on
finer criteria.
</p>
<p>
Search works two ways at once — semantic retrieval for exploratory questions, a
deterministic text index for precise lookups — behind a single chat interface. Ask
<em>"give me datasets about rice,"</em> then follow up with <em>"what growth stage?"</em>
and keep refining.
</p>
</div>
<div>
<p>
Almanacs nest. A university or company can run its own private Almanac so everyone
internally can find institutional data, then selectively export chosen listings to the
global Almanac. Nothing is exposed that the owner did not choose to expose.
</p>
<p>
Because BARN emits standard Croissant, discovered datasets stay directly consumable by
ordinary ML tooling — discovery leads straight into training rather than dead-ending at a
catalog entry.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<figure class="figfull">
<div class="shot"><img src="almanac.png" alt="The Almanac search interface: a chat asking for rice datasets, with matching datasets listed alongside."></div>
<figcaption>Asking the Almanac for datasets across the federated network — matches appear alongside the conversation, each attributed to its owner.</figcaption>
</figure>
<div class="grid g2 figfull">
<figure>
<div class="shot"><img src="data.png" alt="A table of datasets on a single BARN node, showing tags, file counts, size, consent status, and an Edit Croissant action."></div>
<figcaption>The Almanac's federated view - datasets from every BARN in the network, with source and sharing consent at a glance.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<div class="shot"><img src="croissant.png" alt="The Edit Croissant dialog showing generated JSON-LD metadata that the data owner can override."></div>
<figcaption>Metadata is generated automatically, then handed back to the owner to correct. Edits re-push to the Almanac and the search index.</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
</section>
<!-- ================= PILOT ================= -->
<section class="alt" id="pilot">
<div class="wrap">
<p class="eyebrow">Where we are</p>
<h2>An early pilot, heading for public release</h2>
<div class="grid g2" style="align-items:start;gap:44px">
<div>
<div class="notice" style="margin-bottom:32px">
<p><strong>BARN is in an early pilot.</strong> BARN v1.0 is running at four project sites —
the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Washington State University, the University of
Florida, and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center — connected as a network of nodes
around a shared central Almanac, in active use across agriculture, biomanufacturing, and
ecology.</p>
<p>The pilot supports natural-language discovery, simplified upload, automatic metadata
extraction, access control, and visualization, with computation on data at the local node.
Transparent transfer and caching for remote sources is in active development.
<strong>We expect to go public soon</strong> — the software will be released as fully open
source under a permissive license with an explicit patent grant.</p>
</div>
<h3 style="margin-bottom:.6em">Who BARN is for</h3>
<p style="color:#42536e">
Researchers building models for existing data and finding data for existing models; data
providers who want their holdings used and credited; industry teams assembling agentic
workflows; and educators building AI and data literacy on real datasets. If you hold data
that is hard for others to find, or you are hunting for data that should exist somewhere,
you are who we are building this for.
</p>
<div class="tags">
<span class="tag">Agriculture</span>
<span class="tag">Ecology & hydrology</span>
<span class="tag">Bioproduct manufacturing</span>
<span class="tag">Clinical & health data</span>
<span class="tag">Food systems</span>
<span class="tag">Weather</span>
<span class="tag">…and any domain with scattered data</span>
</div>
</div>
<div class="timeline">
<div class="step done">
<div class="mark"><div class="bead"></div><div class="line"></div></div>
<div class="body">
<span class="when">Done</span>
<h3>Prototype and v1.0</h3>
<p>Built at NCSA and the AIFARMS AI Institute, out of real frustrations with fragmented agricultural research data.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="step now">
<div class="mark"><div class="bead"></div><div class="line"></div></div>
<div class="body">
<span class="when">Now — early pilot</span>
<h3>Four sites, three domains</h3>
<p>A live federated network with a central Almanac, natural-language discovery, and local computation. Invite-based, with pilot partners shaping the interface.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="step">
<div class="mark"><div class="bead"></div><div class="line"></div></div>
<div class="body">
<span class="when">Next</span>
<h3>Public open-source release</h3>
<p>Permissive license with an explicit patent grant, distributable node package, reference hardware designs, and documentation so any site can join on its own.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="step">
<div class="mark"><div class="bead"></div><div class="line"></div></div>
<div class="body">
<span class="when">Then</span>
<h3>Beyond four sites</h3>
<p>Transparent remote data access, distributed training via model merging, a Partners Council for community governance, and open calls for new host sites in new domains.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</section>
<!-- ================= COLLABORATORS ================= -->
<section id="collaborators">
<div class="wrap">
<p class="eyebrow">Collaborators</p>
<h2>The sites behind the network</h2>
<p class="lede">
BARN is piloted as a live federated network across four institutions in three research domains.
Each site runs its own node and decides what it shares.
</p>
<div class="logowall">
<a href="https://ncsa.illinois.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
<span class="box"><img class="tall" src="logos/ncsa.png" alt="NCSA, National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois"></span>
<span>University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign</span>
</a>
<a href="https://wsu.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
<span class="box"><img src="logos/wsu.png" alt="Washington State University"></span>
<span>Washington State University</span>
</a>
<a href="https://www.ufl.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
<span class="box"><img src="logos/florida.png" alt="University of Florida"></span>
<span>University of Florida</span>
</a>
<a href="https://www.danforthcenter.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
<span class="box"><img src="logos/danforth.png" alt="Donald Danforth Plant Science Center"></span>
<span>Donald Danforth Plant Science Center</span>
</a>
</div>
</div>
</section>
<!-- ================= CONTACT ================= -->
<section class="alt" id="contact">
<div class="wrap">
<p class="eyebrow">Get involved</p>
<h2>Bring your data, or your questions</h2>
<p class="lede">
We are actively looking for pilot partners in new domains — groups with data worth finding, and
groups who need data that no one has been able to point them at. Reach out and we will talk
through what standing up a node would take at your site.
</p>
<div class="cta">
<a class="btn btn-primary" href="mailto:barn@ncsa.illinois.edu?subject=BARN%20pilot%20interest">Email the BARN team</a>
</div>
</div>
</section>
<hr class="orange-rule">
<footer>
<div class="wrap">
<div class="fgrid">
<div>
<div class="fbrand">
<img src="logo.svg" alt="">
<b>BARN</b>
</div>
<p style="max-width:34ch">
Backbone for Agentic Research Networks — open-source infrastructure for federated research
data discovery and use.
</p>
</div>
<div>
<h4>On this page</h4>
<ul class="ul-clean">
<li><a href="#what">What BARN is</a></li>
<li><a href="#how">How it works</a></li>
<li><a href="#almanac">The Almanac</a></li>
<li><a href="#pilot">Pilot status</a></li>
<li><a href="#collaborators">Collaborators</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<h4>Built at Illinois</h4>
<ul class="ul-clean">
<li>University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign</li>
<li><a href="https://ncsa.illinois.edu">NCSA</a></li>
<li><a href="https://aifarms.illinois.edu">AIFARMS National AI Institute</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div class="ack">
<h4>Acknowledgement</h4>
<p>
BARN is developed at the <a href="https://ncsa.illinois.edu">National Center for
Supercomputing Applications</a> as part of <a href="https://aifarms.illinois.edu/about-us/">AIFARMS</a>
— the Artificial Intelligence for Future Agricultural Resilience, Management, and
Sustainability Institute — which is supported by the
<strong>USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture</strong> and the
<strong>National Science Foundation</strong>.
</p>
<p>
AIFARMS is led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign together with the University of
Chicago, the Donald Danforth Plant Sciences Center, Michigan State University, Tuskegee
University, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, and Argonne National Laboratory.
</p>
<p class="disclaim">
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed on this site are those of
the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USDA National Institute of Food
and Agriculture or the National Science Foundation.
</p>
</div>
<div class="legal">
<span>© 2026 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Early pilot — features and interfaces subject to change.</span>
<span>databarn.org</span>
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