OpenFlexure Working Group

Open Science Shop

28 Jun 2025 — 2 min read

The OpenFlexure Microscope is an open-source, lab-grade microscope. Used in over 50 countries and every continent, the project aims to enable Microscopy for Everyone. Once based primarily at the University of Bath and University of Cambridge, the project has spread. From the Antarctic ice to pathology labs in Rwanda, OpenFlexure Microscopes are transforming the role of microscopy in healthcare, education and in the field.

OpenFlexure Microscope with imaging a cervical smear (Copyright Joe Knapper CC-BY-4)

Microscopes built kits by an Open Science Shop vendor

Directory of Open Science Shop x OpenFlexure Vendors

There are currently 12 manufacturers based in United Kingdom, Sweden, Japan, Australia, Chile, Argentina, Tanzania, Ghana, Cameroon and United States. Read more about the vendor launch which includes the OpenFlexure Team press release.

Join Working Group Meetings

The OSS-OFM Working Group meets the first Monday of the month. We are continuing to onboard more vendors to the network, develop an agreement (MOU) and discuss shared marketing and sales opportunities.

Join the Working Group

Photo of a Mothbox hanging from a tree in Panama. Attribution: Michael Johns

Mothbox Working Group

The Open Science Shop is teaming up with the Mothbox project to help manufacture low-cost insect monitors across the globe!

From Microscopes to Microbes: What’s New at LabCrafter

At the beginning of September last year, my wife and I co-founded a new open science hardware company - LabCrafter - in Wales. We started by offering open science tools to folks in the UK, and recently expanded to serve the EU as well. In addition to being a vendor

Official launch of the OpenFlexure vendors page

This year the Open Science Shop community has been collaborating with the OpenFlexure team with the goal of building a global network of OpenFlexure microscope kit vendors. We have been organizing monthly OSS-OFM working group meetings since February which are archived here. We are really excited by how much progress

Recap: Open Science Shop & OpenFlexure Microscope Working Group Meeting (November 2024)

Recap of the November working group meeting