Developing economical and commercially available materials to replace precious and non-durable platinum based catalysts is a very important issue in contemporary fuel cell tech-nology. Nanostructured carbon materials have the potential to reduce the costs, improve the fuel tolerance and scalability; however, they are limited presently by their relatively low catalytic activity. Herein, we have synthesized a new electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction derived from in situ growth of metal–organic frameworks on carbon nanotubes, followed by pyrolysis. The most efficient catalyst yielded comparable catalytic activity than commercial platinum-based catalysts and a low Tafel slope of 49 mV dec À1 . This excellent performance is attributable to the formation of 3D structured porous and N doped carbon/carbon nanotubular composites. High surface area and continuous cata-lytic layer on graphitic carbon boosts the active sites and reactivity during electrolysis.