Exploring Arctic Research with the Dimensions Database: Three Pilot Reports Released Today

In recent weeks, several members of the University of the Arctic (UArctic), a cooperative network of universities, colleges, research institutes and other organizations concerned with education and research in and around the north, have produced a pilot report, “International Arctic Research: Analyzing Global Funding Trends”, in collaboration with Digital Science. This report aims to analyze the current state of Arctic research using international funding information and relate this to both activities of the Arctic Council Member and Observer states, as well as international research activity generally.

The UArctic aims to build and strengthen collective resources and collaborative infrastructure by the provision of unique educational and research opportunities through collaboration within a powerful network of members. This pilot report is the initiation of a strategic partnership between Digital Science and UArctic and is the first ever attempt to create a comprehensive view of global Arctic research funding using a dataset of such magnitude.

“…first ever attempt to create a comprehensive view of global Arctic research funding using a dataset of such magnitude.”

Seven key findings of the pilot report are as follows:

• 1% of all recorded research funding is related to Arctic research.
• Earth Sciences and Biological Sciences are the two most-funded subfields of Arctic research.
• The USA is the largest Arctic research nation both in total spending and number of projects started.
• UArctic institutions are central actors in Arctic research globally. Overall, UArctic member institutions represent approximately 35% of all the Arctic research funding, based on total of 4.8 billion US dollars in funding
• Arctic Council Observer nations are increasingly doing more research on the Arctic. The UK, in particular, has a considerable number of Arctic research projects.
• The analysis suggests that there is neither significant growth nor shrinkage in the volume of Arctic research funding over the period 2008-2014.

The report illustrates what is possible when using the Dimensions database from ÜberResearch for a detailed analysis of the research funding and activity in any given research area. With over 200 funders representing 2.5million awarded research grants, and growing all the time, Dimensions is the only tool which has both the width of data and precision technology behind it to produce this kind of landscape analysis of any research area.

Alongside the main report, two working papers have also been released which analyze different aspects of Arctic research, in publications data and alternative metrics respectively. The first of these – “Arctic Research Publications” – examines the research activity in Arctic research using the same definition as the main report.

The second working report – “Arctic Altmetrics“ – explores alternative metrics in Arctic research. Using the Altmetric Attention Score, this report highlights the distinct benefits of considering attention information when analyzing the impact of a given field of study. Various levels of data aggregation were taken into consideration from that of the individual publication, all the way up to the impact that an entire country is making on a given field. Examples were also given of how one might use Altmetrics to characterize contributions of a given scientist, journal, university, and Arctic research subfield. Finally, the potential to use real-time, Altmetric attention-spikes as a trigger to begin new survey-driven, social-science-focused research projects was explored.

Together, these three pilot reports highlight three distinct ways in which any given research area can be examined with Digital Science tools. The resulting complementary information can build a more comprehensive overview of the activity in any given research area, offering increased understanding and awareness, information that until now has not been easily accessible.