Digital Science has awarded its latest Catalyst Grants to two innovative teams supporting their technology ideas to safeguard research integrity and strengthen trust in science. Congratulations to PostPub and VIRUS (Visualization of irregular research under scrutiny). To learn more about their work, watch their video below and read the press release here.
About our Challenge
In this Catalyst Grant round, Digital Science looked to support entrepreneurs in developing new and innovative ways to address Research Integrity. Trust in research has never been more important with increasing issues of plagiarism, falsification, research ethics, publication ethics, financial mismanagement and conflicts of interest. UKRIO has reported a 71% increase in formal requests regarding integrity issues since 2007, with a third from the health and biomedicine sector. The greatest increases are in issues of good practice and governance, showing that integrity is broader than just dishonest practices. Now more than ever, we want to support the scientific community in finding new ways to ensure integrity in research.
Area of Focus
We are looking for ideas for novel applications of Research Integrity and Research Security in areas such as:
- Accountability and Transparency: Enhanced mechanisms for monitoring and auditing funded research, ensuring accountability and transparency in the use of public funds.
- Ethical Standards: Improved frameworks and tools for maintaining high ethical standards, preventing misconduct such as plagiarism, data fabrication, and falsification
- Efficiency and Productivity: Streamlined processes and tools for ensuring research integrity and security, leading to more efficient and productive research environments.
- Global Collaboration: Harmonised standards and practices facilitate international research collaborations and drive global scientific progress.
The Catalyst Grant was born of our desire to help early-stage software ideas come to fruition. We invest in the community, and we come from the community. Our team is made up of people with research backgrounds and decades of experience within research software. For us, the grant’s real value is in starting conversations, some leading to awards, but the majority to the sharing of advice, the making of introductions and the cultivation of ideas.
How to enter?
At this time the Catalyst Grant application window is closed. Thank you to those who have submitted their applications, we are looking forward to reviewing.
Click below to be notified when applications open for the next cycle.
Why enter?
Catalyst Grant aims to support innovative initiatives:
- Receive up to £25,000 equity-free funding
- Access Digital Science’s network of technical and research experts
- Raise the profile of your project through our global presence
- Be part of advancing research and creating societal impact
Hear from some of our previous winners
Learn more about the Catalyst Grant impact from our 2023 Catalyst Grant recipients:
2023 Winner, Atom
Atom aims to build an “end-to-end system” using neural matching, Generative AI, and automated workflows “to help researchers manage grants.
2023 Winner, Future Metric
Future Metric seeks to develop novel research impact metrics, using predictive AI modeling to help better understand research impact ahead of time.
More about the 2024 Challenge
How we have benefited previous winners
Resource Library
Find out more about Research Integrity at Digital Science.
Dimensions Research Integrity
About 50-85% of published research is unreproducible. The effects of questionable scientific veracity and the spreading of mis- or disinformation erode trust in research.
TL;DR Shorts: Chris DiBona
Chris DiBona, covers many themes across the research community, including open research, trust and integrity, and revamping research culture to make it more fit-for-purpose.
Research integrity experts call for new forensics discipline
A new field of forensics is being proposed by research integrity experts to recognize their investigations into unscrupulous research behavior and misuse of scholarship: Forensic Scientometrics.
Academic Community – supporting research integrity
Research integrity will be a dominant theme in scholarly communications over the next decade. Challenges around Generative AI, paper mills, and fake science will only get more complex.
