Commissioned by ARDC as part of its work on the National Persistent Identifier Strategy, the toolkit provides a structured approach to assessing the adoption and maturity of PID infrastructure across Australia’s research ecosystem. It is intended to inform shared planning, highlight areas for improvement, and support long-term progress towards a more connected and interoperable research environment.

About the Toolkit

Persistent identifiers — including ORCID iDs, DOIs, RORs, and RAiDs — are now widely recognised as foundational components of modern research infrastructure. They help connect researchers, projects, outputs, institutions, and services across systems and domains.

The National PID Strategy outlines five strategic objectives that aim to increase the discoverability and reusability of research, improve reproducibility, reduce administrative burden, strengthen impact assessment, and support national capability mapping. The benchmarking toolkit aligns with these objectives by offering a set of SMART benchmarks — Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound —that provides a national framework for assessing progress against the Strategy whilst also providing a mechanism for institutions and sector bodies to evaluate their progress.

Each benchmark is grounded in the current state of practice and considers relevant factors such as international dependencies, expected maturity, stakeholder responsibilities, and alignment with FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable).

A Sector-Wide Resource

The toolkit covers a broad range of research inputs and outputs, including grants, research projects, research data, facilities, reports, methods, and non-traditional outputs. It also highlights the importance of connecting research activities across the full lifecycle.

As a practical demonstration of benchmarking in action, the report includes an analysis of Australia’s progress in ORCID adoption. Drawing on data from Dimensions and other sources, the report benchmarks ORCID uptake and record completeness by country, funder, discipline, publisher, and institution. Australia’s coordinated efforts over the past several years — including those led by ARDC and its partners — have resulted in one of the highest levels of ORCID adoption and integration globally.

Invitation to Contribute

This consultation draft is intended to support discussion and feedback across the sector. We invite contributions from institutions, funders, service providers, and researchers to help ensure that the final version — to be published in October 2025 — is both useful and implementable.

Over the coming months, Digital Science and ARDC will continue to refine the benchmarks and consult with stakeholders through a series of validation workshops and collaborative development activities.

Timeline

• July–August 2025: Consultation, Validation and refinement
• September 2025: Stakeholder workshops
• October 2025: Final release of the benchmarking toolkit

Access the Report

Download the consultation draft of the Australian National PID Benchmarking Toolkit: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29281667

Co-authored by Digital Science’s Simon Porter (VP Research Futures), Dr Juergen Wastl (VP Research Evaluation and Global Challenges) and Dr Hélène Draux (Senior Data Scientist).

For questions or feedback, please contact Simon Porter.

The post Supporting Australia’s PID Strategy: Introducing the National Benchmarking Toolkit (Consultation Draft) appeared first on Digital Science.

As someone who works at the intersection of open research and AI, I’ve found myself returning to a specific question: What kind of content truly matters to AI? I have previously spoken of an AI powered flywheel effect in research, where each cycle follows this pattern:

1. Raw data is processed by AI to generate initial research outputs
2. Knowledge extraction tools mine these outputs for higher-order insights
3. These insights form a new, refined dataset
4. AI processes this refined dataset, generating more precise analyses
5. The cycle continues, with each rotation producing more valuable knowledge

I interpret “understanding the fundamentals” as being the base layer, the raw data. Models can mimic almost any writing style and generate endless reams of text. Not all content is created equal. I have witnessed this first hand as self declared “academics” from around the globe use generalist repositories to post non peer-reviewed content written by LLMs which proves their genius.

AI systems, particularly large language models, rely on data to learn. Not just more data, but better data; data that reveals new structure in the world. Without novel input, AI models will become better at rephrasing the known, but not at understanding the unknown. At its core, science is a method for producing high-quality, structured novelty – a repeatable process for generating new facts, testing them against reality, and sharing them with the world. Basic research, often funded for its long-term potential rather than short-term applications, is the primary engine of this kind of content. AlphaFold succeeded because it was trained on grounded, empirical data from the protein databank.

If we want AI to continue advancing in a meaningful way that uncovers new knowledge, we need to prioritise access to and support for novel scientific research. That means supporting open science. It means investing in infrastructure that ensures new data and discoveries are FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). It means rethinking publication practices to encourage the dissemination of negative results, replication studies, and raw data. And it means funding basic research across the globe.

China has significantly increased its investment in basic research, aiming to reduce reliance on foreign technology and achieve self-sufficiency in foundational sciences. China’s spending on basic research passed 6% of its total R&D in 2023 and continues to rise. China seems to be an outlier. Here in the UK for example, basic research through UKRI continues but often faces pressures to demonstrate short-term economic impact. In the US, the NSF and NIH continue to support basic research, but federal R&D budgets have shifted toward mission-driven, applied research. The Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act brought some uplift, but basic science still receives a minority share of total R&D.

The geopolitical landscape is hard to predict. But the narrative is that all countries want to compete on the AI stage. Radical abundance only will happen in your country if you have some control of the input to the models. 

At a separate SXSW London session, we also heard from former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and The Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. Peter Kyle’s plans for integrating AI into the UK government are commendable, and seem to be advancing at a pace that the UK government is not famous for. A comment from Tony Blair however highlighted what is at stake if we don’t fund basic research: “It is amazing to me that we are not feeding all of the NHS data into these AI models.”

Whether you trust this government with your most sensitive data or not, we will have future governments who may not follow your best interests – in the same way that LLM models are ignoring copyright on academic publications today, they may ignore human ethics when it comes to your medical data. Feeding the NHS into LLMs is not the answer. The easiest way to generate new data for the AI models with a view to advance science and technology is to fund more basic research and insist that the outputs be made open in a FAIR manner.

There is so much to gain. The value of novel scientific research has never been higher.

The post AI Needs New Facts – The Value of Novel Scientific Research appeared first on Digital Science.

Venki breaks his thoughts down into two categories, the first of which is around general integrity in research. Measures of robust research include whether published research is sufficiently detailed that someone could perform the experiment and observe results that reproduce the reported research outcomes. This is just one measure to help determine the quality of research being conducted and is a core tenet of peer review, by peers and competitors who would be able to expose any issues in the research. There is also the conscious or unconscious cherry-picking of observations, which can again be mitigated through community consensus and conversation. If something is proven to be wrong, this consensus can be challenged and eventually help shift our understanding of the problem.

However, Venki also discusses the much bigger and more pervasive issue of misinformation, which goes beyond the scientific community and impacts all aspects of our lives, including politics, behaviour, economics, and more. Many threads of life are susceptible to the negative impacts of misinformation, which is being accelerated further by the ease at which information can be shared, and the contribution that AI is making to the volume of misinformation available in the wild.

Venki encourages us to be alert and involved as a society in combatting misinformation through robust critical thinking, to help prevent the spread of incorrect information that could otherwise go on to misinform policy and processes that impact us every day.

Subscribe now to be notified of each weekly release of the latest TL;DR Short, and catch up with the entire series here. 

If you’d like to suggest future contributors for our series or suggest some topics you’d like us to cover, drop Suze a message on one of our social media channels and use the hashtag #TLDRShorts.

The post TL;DR Shorts: Professor Venki Ramakrishnan on Trust in Research appeared first on Digital Science.

In our first Speaker Series chat of 2025, and in a month that heralds much political interest in the role of truth and trust in society, Deborah delves into the challenges and opportunities facing science communication today. She explores the importance of storytelling, the necessity of improving scientific literacy in all, and the steps needed to build a future where science journalism drives meaningful dialogue and action. Her insights offer a vision of how journalists and scientists can work together to showcase the human side of science and ensure it serves all communities fairly and effectively.

Deborah Blum is an acclaimed science journalist, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and Director of the Knight Science Journalism program at MIT. With a career spanning decades, she has worked tirelessly to bridge the gap between science and the public through her compelling storytelling and her commitment to advancing science literacy. Her influential books, which include The Poisoner’s Handbook and The Poison Squad, explore the intersection of science, history, and societal impact. At the Knight Science Journalism program, Deborah leads efforts to train and support journalists worldwide, fostering a global community dedicated to improving the quality of science communication and addressing pressing challenges like misinformation and declining public trust in science.

The Role of Science Journalism

Science journalism plays an important role in making connections between scientific discoveries and people’s everyday lives. Deborah describes the role that science journalists play in helping to translate complex scientific ideas into stories that resonate with readers. Good storytelling can make even the most abstract research feel relevant and engaging.

In a world increasingly driven by scientific and technological progress, this connection is more important than ever. Deborah highlights that science journalism not only informs but also inspires public interest and action. By showing how science impacts issues like health, climate change, and technology, journalists help communities see the relevance of research in shaping our future. As she puts it, “We need to write about science and its impacts, right? We need to acknowledge that it has these social and cultural impacts. We need to illuminate those in all of their social justice issues.”

The Impact of the KSJ Program

At the heart of Deborah’s work is her leadership of the Knight Science Journalism (KSJ) program at MIT, where she has been Director for a decade, a role which she will be stepping down from in July 2025. The KSJ program is somewhat of a global engine for excellence in science communication. The program provides resources, fellowships, and a thriving community for journalists to deepen their expertise and broaden their perspectives.

But the KSJ program goes beyond training – it builds a community of professionals who share a commitment to thoughtful, accurate reporting. Deborah believes this community approach is critical in a world where misinformation spreads rapidly. When journalists feel supported and connected, they are better equipped to tackle tough stories and elevate public understanding. This global impact is reflected in the program’s alumni, who are shaping conversations about science across continents.

Challenges in Science Communication

Communicating science effectively isn’t without its hurdles. Deborah points out that misinformation is casting an ever-growing shadow, compounded by public scepticism and limited access to scientific education and critical thinking skills. We now live in an age where everyone has a platform from which they can share their thoughts, but not everyone values the accuracy of those thoughts. Deborah emphasised the need for journalists to cut through the noise with credible, engaging stories.

Another challenge is the disconnect between scientists and the public. Deborah argues that many researchers struggle to communicate their work in accessible ways, leaving gaps that can be filled by misunderstanding or fear. “The more people can see scientists as actual human beings next door, the better off we all are,” she insists. Building bridges between these groups is crucial to fostering a more informed and engaged society.

The Importance of Science Literacy

Science literacy is the foundation of informed decision-making, yet many people lack the tools to critically evaluate scientific information, with many people even being fearful and actively disengaged with science. Deborah shares her thoughts about the shortcomings of educational systems. She believes that by not teaching people how to think critically about science, we are doing a disservice to society. Without this foundation, the public is more vulnerable to the potentially negative consequences of pseudoscience and misinformation.

Deborah believes that improving science literacy requires a collective effort. Journalists, educators, and policymakers must work together to ensure that everyone has access to clear and reliable information. It is not only about teaching facts but also about teaching people how to think, and how to evaluate those facts for any inherent bias. “We don’t want everyone to be a scientist, but we do want everyone to know something about science and how to make decisions about science and to recognize that every time you fry an egg or make a cup of tea or peel a banana, you’re engaging with chemistry, right, in everyday science. And it makes the world that much more interesting.” By developing people’s ability to understand and question scientific claims, society can make better choices for the future, and hold bad actors accountable for bad science.

Building Trust in Science

Trust in science has been eroded in recent years, but Deborah sees this as an opportunity for change. Trust isn’t automatically granted – it is something that must be earned. Scientists and journalists both have roles to play in this process. Deborah encourages researchers to embrace transparency and share not just their successes but also their uncertainties and failures, to humanise their motivations and actions, and to showcase the more realistic side of the scientific process.

She also highlights the importance of equity in building trust. Science needs to serve all communities, not just a select few, so addressing social justice issues in science such as unequal access to education and healthcare can help rebuild trust in science’s potential to improve lives. Through honest and inclusive communication, science can regain its role as a trusted guide for society.

The Future of Science Journalism

Looking ahead, Deborah envisions a future where science journalism is more valuable than ever. She sees the next generation of journalists as not only storytellers but also advocates for social justice. She believes that the future of science journalism lies in showcasing the human side of science, and how it impacts people and communities.

Deborah encourages young journalists to be fearless in tackling big issues, from climate change to misinformation. We need journalists who are smarter, braver, and more curious. By embracing innovation and collaboration, science journalism can continue to be a powerful force for good, shaping public understanding and inspiring meaningful action in an increasingly complex world.

Deborah’s thoughts are a powerful reminder of the critical role that science journalism plays in shaping a better-informed, more engaged society. From her leadership of the Knight Science Journalism program to her advocacy for transparency, equity, and science literacy, Deborah tangibly demonstrates how storytelling can drive meaningful change. As we face global challenges like misinformation, climate change, and declining trust in science, her call for collaboration and innovation in both journalism and science communication is more relevant than ever. By fostering a new generation of journalists who are fearless, thoughtful, and socially conscious, Deborah is helping to build a future where science journalism not only informs but also empowers us to build a better world.

You can watch the full interview with Deborah on our YouTube channel, and check out our Speaker Series playlist on YouTube which includes chats with some of our previous speakers, as well as our TL;DR Shorts playlist with short, snappy insights from a range of experts on the topics that matter to the research community. We’ve even joined the podcast universe! Catch our 2025 Speaker Series season and our chat with Deborah on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

With thanks to Huw James from Science Story Lab for filming and co-producing this interview. Filmed at the Knight Science Journalism offices at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA in April 2024.

The post Science Journalism and Social Justice – meet Deborah Blum appeared first on Digital Science.

Every Muppets fan knows that Christmas is all about being revisited by people you’ve previously encountered. So from 25th December to 5th January we’ll be sharing our 12 Days of DSmas. Check back daily as we share a Speaker Series chat each and every day. Happy Holidays from the Digital Science Thought Leadership Team!

Merry Dr Chris Van Tulleken-mas! We chatted with Chris online about research integrity, impact, openness, and investigative research. Catch his interview here, and don’t forget to watch his Xmas Lectures on BBC for The Royal Institution this year!

Chris on Spotify

Chris on Apple Podcasts

Chris on YouTube

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Professor Dame Athene Donald joined our Speaker Series line-up in February after her Speaker Series Live talk at the Ri in London, UK. Here she is talking about why we need to empower women in STEM from the ground up.

Athene on Spotify

Athene on Apple Podcasts

Athene on YouTube

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It’s time to go to Berlin, Germany and catch Matyas Kovacs at the Falling Walls Summit. Matyas shared his thoughts on communication and innovation to impact all of society with science.

Matyas on Spotify

Matyas on Apple Podcasts

Matyas on YouTube

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As a Nobel laureate and former president of The Royal Society, Professor Venki Ramakrishnan has long played a role in shaping a more innovative, inclusive and impactful research culture, which we chatted about during his live Speaker Series lecture at the Ri. We went to Cambridge, UK to hear his thoughts on curiosity, competition and collaboration.

Venki on Spotify

Venki on Apple Podcasts

Venki on YouTube

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As Chief Publishing Officer at PLOS, Niamh provides business leadership for the entire PLOS portfolio to advance PLOS’s vision and mission. In this episode Niamh talks about the evolving landscape of scientific research and the push towards open science, including her journey from the early days of advocating for public access to research, to tackling current challenges like making science more inclusive and accessible.

Niamh on Spotify

Niamh on Apple Podcasts

Niamh on YouTube

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Building communities is hard, but Alice Meadows has worked hard to make it look effortless. Here she is in Boston, MA, USA, telling us about the power of persistent identifiers.

Alice on Spotify

Alice on Apple Podcasts

Alice on YouTube

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It’s New Year’s Eve, and a time to reflect on the past and make plans for the months ahead. When we visited the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, Germany, we added to the echoes of amazing research conversations resonating around their iconic library when we chatted about the history, philosophy and future of research with Dr Maria Avxentevskaya and Dr Ben Johnson.

Maria and Ben on Spotify

Maria and Ben on Apple Podcasts

Maria and Ben on YouTube

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Happy New Year! We caught up with pro-skater Rodney Mullen at his home in Los Angeles, USA to hear his thoughts on why we need diverse minds to innovate in all walks – and ollies – of life. And, since it’s the new year and you’re probably feeling a little “sleep deprived”, you can also follow this up with his live Speaker Series lecture at the Ri.

Rodney on Spotify

Rodney on Apple Podcasts

Rodney on YouTube

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If you’ve been eating as much cheese as this author, dearest gentle reader, you too will be experiencing a fascinatingly slippery grasp on reality – which brings us to Day 9’s featured speaker. “Is Maths Real?” was the question that Dr Eugenia Cheng posed in her live Speaker Series lecture at the Ri. I caught up with her ahead of her lecture in the iconic Faraday lecture theatre in London, UK to talk about why we need to break down barriers of knowledge in research, and reunite STEM and the humanities for impactful change.

Eugenia on Spotify

Eugenia on Apple Podcasts

Eugenia on YouTube

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Dr Gilbert De Gregorio leads the Frontiers Planet Prize. I caught up with him in Berlin, Germany, to talk about why we need more inclusive competitions to catalyse innovation that impacts our global society.

Gilbert on Spotify

Gilbert on Apple Podcasts

Gilbert on YouTube

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2024 was a wild ride for global politics, and research is not immune to its changes. I caught up with Professor Jenny Reardon in Cambridge, UK, to learn more about how we can work with politics, and not against it, to provide solutions for everyone across the world, and where red tape remains to be overcome.

Jenny on Spotify

Jenny on Apple Podcasts

Jenny on YouTube

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Our final Speaker Series guest of 2024 was Dr Danny Hillis. We visited the Applied Invention offices in Cambridge, MA, USA, where innovator, inventor, and Imagineer Danny shared his thoughts on how we can use novel technology to combat novel challenges in mis- and disinformation and make the most meaningful impact from data.

Danny on Spotify

Danny on Apple Podcasts

Danny on YouTube

Read more

The post The 12 Days of DSmas appeared first on Digital Science.

Subscribe now to be notified of each weekly release of the latest TL;DR Short, and catch up with the entire series here. 

If you’d like to suggest future contributors for our series or suggest some topics you’d like us to cover, drop Suze a message on one of our social media channels and use the hashtag #TLDRShorts.

The post TL;DR Shorts: Venki Ramakrishnan on the Future of Biology appeared first on Digital Science.

Danny uses agriculture as one example of an area of research vital to the survival of humanity where we aren’t doing enough research. Any fellow BBC Countryfile fan will know that farmers work incredibly hard tending to their agricultural land and responding to the dynamic needs placed on them by the changing climate and other factors. Though they may like to, they often don’t have time to do experiments and contribute to the corpus of research information in this space in a way they would like to.

However, if we start to collect data from the automation of the mechanisation farmers used to work the land, we can allow these “robots” to conduct a series of experiments that humans don’t have the time to do.

Danny believes that in the future these machines will also contribute to planning future experiments to explore such research spaces. He believes that the future of automated science will be done by AI – allowing humans to increase the number of experiments they can conduct, increase the amount of data gathered, and increase the number of hypotheses being tested.

Subscribe now to be notified of each weekly release of the latest TL;DR Short, and catch up with the entire series here. 

If you’d like to suggest future contributors for our series or suggest some topics you’d like us to cover, drop Suze a message on one of our social media channels and use the hashtag #TLDRShorts.

The post TL;DR Shorts: Dr Danny Hillis on the Automated Future of Research appeared first on Digital Science.

As part of our ongoing investigation into Research Transformation, we are delighted to present a new report, Research Transformation: Change in the era of AI, open and impact.

Within the report, we sought to understand from our academic research community how research transformation is experienced across different roles and responsibilities. The report, which is a mixture of surveys and interviews across libraries, research offices, leadership and faculty, reflects transformations in the way we collaborate, assess, communicate, and conduct research.

The positions that we hold towards these areas are not the same as those we held a decade or even five years ago. Each of these perspectives represent shifts in the way that we perceive ourselves and the roles that we play in the community. Although there is concern about the impact that AI will have on our community, our ability to adapt and change is reflected strongly across all areas of research, including open access, metrics collaboration and research security. That such a diverse community is able to continually adapt to change reflects well on our ability to respond to future challenges.

Key findings from the report:

• Open research is transforming research, but barriers remain

• Research metrics are evolving to emphasize holistic impact and inclusivity

• AI’s transformative potential is huge, but bureaucracy and skill gaps threaten progress

• Collaboration is booming, but increasing concerns over funding and security

• Security and risk management need a strategic and cultural overhaul

We do these kinds of surveys to understand where the research community is moving and how we can tweak and adapt our approach as a company. We were very grateful to the great minds who helped us out with a deep dive into what has affected their roles and will affect their roles going forward. Metrics, Open Research and AI are very aligned with the tools that we provide for academics, and the strategy we have to make research more inclusive, transparent and trustworthy.

The post Presenting: Research Transformation: Change in the era of AI, open and impact appeared first on Digital Science.

Open research is transforming the way research findings are discovered, shared and reproduced. As part of our commitment to the Open Principles and research transformation, we are looking into how open research is transforming roles, approaches, policies and, most importantly, mindsets for everyone across the research landscape. See our inspiring transformational stories so far.

Academia is at a pivotal juncture. It has often been criticized as slow to change, but external pressures from an increasingly complex world are forcing rapid change in the sector. To understand more about how the research world is transforming, what’s influencing change, and how roles are impacted, we reached out to the research community through a global survey and in-depth interviews.

Research Transformation stories so far…

Digital Science Open Principles

Read now

Open Access: Mo Money Mo Problems

Read now

The Initial Transformation

Read now

Academic Survey Report Pre-registration

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State of Open Data 2024 – Special Edition

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Will 2025 be a turning point for Open Access? – Digital Science

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How has innovation shaped Open Research? What does the future hold – especially with the impact of AI? Here’s Dan Valen speaking about Figshare’s key role, with innovation helping to transform the research landscape.

Digital Science has always understood its role as a community partner – working towards open research together. Here’s some ways in which we have helped to transform research over the last 14 years.

In our first piece, Simon Porter and Mark Hahnel introduce the topic and detail the three areas the campaign will focus on.

The Story of Data Transformation

The Story of Connection

The Story of Research Innovation

• Making data more usable
• Opening up channels & the flow of information
• Transforming data through innovation & AI
• Maintaining trust & integrity

• Seeing both perspectives
• What success looks like for knowledge transfer
• Evolving roles and the role of people in bridging gaps

• Research Transformation White Paper
• How have roles changed:
  • In Academia?
  • In Publishing?
  • In Industry?
• State of AI Report
• How are we using AI in our research workflows?

Research Transformation

The way we interact with information can amplify our ability to make connections, and in doing so transforms how we understand the world. Supercharged by the AI moment that we are in, the steady march of digital transformation in society over the last three decades is primed for rapid evolution. What is true for society, is also doubly so for research. Alongside ground-breaking research and discoveries is the constant invitation to adapt to new knowledge and abilities. Combine the general imperative within the research sector to innovate with the rapidly evolving capabilities of generative AI and it is safe to say that expectations are high. Taking effective advantage of new possibilities as they arise however, requires successful coordination within society and systems. 

There is an art to transformation, and understanding the mechanisms of transformation places us in the best position to take advantage of the opportunities ahead.

In this series, we specifically seek to explore Research Transformation with an eye to adapting what we already know to the present AI moment. Transformation in Research is not just about digital systems, but it is also about people and organisations – crossing boundaries from research to industry, emerging new research sectors, creating new narratives and adapting to the possibilities that change brings.

At Digital Science, we have always sought to be an integral part of research transformation, aiming to provide products that enable the research sector to evolve research practice – from collaboration and discovery through to analytics and administration. Our ability to serve clients from research institutions to funders, publishers, and industry has placed us in a unique position to facilitate change across the sector, not simply within silos, but between them. In this series, we will be drawing on our own experiences of research transformation, as well as inviting perspectives from the broader community. As we proceed we hope to show that Research Transformation isn’t just about careful planning, but requires a sense of playfulness – a willingness to explore new technology, a commitment to a broader vision for better research, as well as an ability to build new bridges between communities.

In the first of three themes, we will cover Research Transformation from the perspective of the data and metadata of research. How do changes to the metadata of research transform our ability to make impact, as well as see the research community through new lenses? How does technology enable these changes to occur? Starting almost from the beginning, we will look at how transitions in publishing practice have enabled the diversity of the research workforce to become visible. We will also trace the evolving story of the structure of a researcher’s papers, from the critical use of identifiers, to adoption of the credit ontology, through to the use of trust markers (including ethics statements and data and code availability, and conflict of interest statements.) The evolving consensus on structured and semi structured nature of research articles changes not only the way we discover, read and trust individual research papers, but also transforms our ability to measure and manage research itself.

Our focus will not only be reflective, but will also look forward to the emerging challenges and opportunities that generative AI offers. We will ask deep questions about how research should make its way into large language models. We also explore the new field of Forensic Scientometrics that has arisen in response to the dramatic increase in bad faith science in part enabled by generative AI, and the new research administration collaborations that this implies – both with research institutions and across publishing. We will aso offer more playful, experimental investigations.  For example, a series on ‘prompt engineering for librarians’ draws on the original pioneering spirit of the 1970’s MEDLARS Analysts to explore the possibilities that tools such as OpenAI can offer. 

Lifting up from the data, we note that a critical part of our experience of research transformation has been the ability to experience and connect with research fromshifting perspectives. In this second theme exploring research transformation, we aim to celebrate the art of making connections, from the personal transformations required  to make the shift from working within research institutions to industry, through to the art of building research platforms that support multiple sectors. We also cover familiar topics from new angles, For instance, how do the FAIR data principles benefit the pharmaceutical industry? How do we build effective research collaborations with emerging research sectors in Africa?

In our third theme, we will explore Research Transformation from the perspective of innovation, and how it has influenced the way research is conducted. Culminating in a  Research Transformation White Paper we will explore how roles have changed in academia, publishing, and industry.  Within this broader context of Research transformation, we ask ‘How are we using AI in our research workflows?’ How do we think we will be using AI in years to come?

Of course, many of us in the Digital Science community have been engaging with different aspects of research transformation over many years. If you are keen to explore our thinking to date, one place that you might like to start is at our Research Transformation collection on Figshare. Here we have collated what we think are some of our most impactful contributions to Research Transformation so far. We are very much looking forward to reflecting on research transformation throughout the year. If you are interested in contributing, or just generally finding out more, why not get in touch?

The post Welcome to… Research Transformation!  appeared first on Digital Science.

A ‘Nobel’ Purpose

Alfred Nobel established the Nobel Prizes in the late 19th century to honour individuals or organisations that make extraordinary contributions in fields including chemistry, physics, medicine, economics, literature, and peace. The goal was to reward those who advance knowledge, promote human welfare, or contribute to peace. While his vision was inclusive, the early years of the prize often reflected the male-dominated world of science and academia.

The Impact of Winning Awards

Winning a prestigious award like the Nobel Prize can transform a career. It brings visibility, funding, and opportunities, enhancing credibility and often leading to leadership positions or influence in policy-making. However, with the honour comes pressure – the recognition can be empowering but may also come with additional scrutiny and challenges, making it a double-edged sword.

Gender Imbalance in Science Awards

All the winners of the 2024 science Nobel Prizes are men, especially at a time when more women are entering STEM fields and making significant contributions. This imbalance raises concerns about whether institutional barriers or unconscious biases continue to prevent deserving women from receiving recognition. The lack of diversity not only limits the acknowledgment of talent but also risks sending a discouraging message to future generations of women in science.

Why Diversity in Awards Matters

Diversity in awards is critical because it ensures that people from all backgrounds are seen and celebrated. When prize committees recognise a wide range of contributors, it helps break stereotypes and demonstrates that success in science and other fields is not limited by gender or background. It also pushes institutions to create a more inclusive environment, giving everyone a fair shot at success and setting the tone for a more diverse future in STEM fields.

The Frontiers Planet Prize: A Step Towards More Inclusive Recognition

A positive example of how awards are moving towards greater inclusivity is the Frontiers Planet Prize. This prize recognizes groundbreaking research addressing urgent global challenges like climate change and sustainability. The organisers have made a deliberate effort to highlight the work of a diverse group of researchers, shifting towards a more inclusive vision of scientific achievement. By focusing on issues that affect society as a whole, the prize aims to recognize a broader range of contributions, creating a model for how other awards can diversify and better reflect the world we live in.

You can watch the full interview with Gilbert on our YouTube channel, and check out our Speaker Series playlist on YouTube which includes chats with some of our previous speakers, as well as our TL;DR Shorts playlist with short, snappy insights from a range of experts on the topics that matter to the research community.

With thanks to Huw James from Science Story Lab for filming and co-producing this interview.

The post Incentives for Innovation – meet Dr Gilbert De Gregorio appeared first on Digital Science.