A well-dispersed Co,N co-doped carbon nanoframework (Co, N-CNF) with hierarchically porous structure is successfully synthesized from zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF) precursors via a mesoporous-silica-protected calcination strategy. By preventing the irreversible fusion and aggregation during the high-temperature pyrolysis step with this protection strategy, the Co, N-CNF exhibits comparable oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalytic activity to that of commercial Pt catalysts with the same loading. [GRAPHICS] .