ResearchGate's messaging system has specific restrictions that could explain your inability to send messages:

If these steps don't resolve the issue, consider contacting ResearchGate's support for further assistance.

Thanks for the answer.

I will check all the three points and will let you know.

Best,

Point 1 is not correct. One can't send messages to people followed!

Many thanks.

This must cease. RG is not the dictator, and we are slaves

This is a really bad system: prevent scientific communication. Would be rather nice to have a possibility to message people, complimented with the corresponding privacy options. And for sure, should clearly state why the message can't be sent instead of a generic error message...

Alexander A. Govyadinov

I agree with you.

To promote communication between researchers, we need to control the options in the message sent to others here.

Best,

So, is there any way of getting around this? I have a question about a paper from the author, but the only way I can think of contacting them is to send another paper request with my question.

Kind regards,

Benedict

ResearchGate remains silent! Why?

I experienced the same issue. We cannot communicate with colleagues via RG anymore. What's the point of being on RG if we cannot communicate?

Rubina Polovina, It does make collaborating and discussing stuff rather difficult, doesn't it? Especially if something goes wrong when they send the paper, or you have a follow-up question.

Benedict Fletcher, RG has now blocked messaging between users who don’t follow each other. No announcement. No opt-in. Just gone. This was the one thing that made RG more than just a static academic profile. It allowed researchers to reach out, request papers, and—most importantly—discuss them. There was a certain legitimacy in contacting someone via RG that cold email never offered.

Without that, RG loses its core purpose as a network. It wasn’t just about uploading PDFs—it was about access and dialogue. We now have to reconsider how we communicate—and where. At the moment, I’m not aware of a suitable alternative.

Many years ago, we could have spirited, meaningful scientific discussions on LinkedIn. Today, LinkedIn is dominated by performative professional branding and hollow rhetoric around career success—a shift noted even in mainstream media (e.g., The Guardian).

Academia.edu once looked promising, but the moment I started receiving misleading notifications about citations, it became clear that the platform had pivoted away from real scholarship.

ResearchGate had removed its project features several years ago. Now it has disabled direct communication. What remains for researchers who want to collaborate, exchange ideas, or simply ask each other questions? If RG is positioning itself as just a preprint server, then frankly, there are better platforms for that too. If anyone knows of an actual alternative for meaningful academic exchange, I’d be interested.