"[1] Brian Nosek and Jeffrey Spies founded the organization in January 2013, funded mainly by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation and others.

[3][4][5] A second reproducibility project for cancer biology research has also been started through a partnership with Science Exchange.

[7] Brian Nosek posted a letter outlining the history of the Center and future directions.

The framework was initially used to work on a project in the reproducibility of psychology research,[11][12] but has subsequently become multidisciplinary.

[14] In 2016, OSF started three new preprint services: engrXiv, SocArXiv, and (with the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science) PsyArXiv.