The Institute leverages Dimensions and Altmetric data to facilitate interdisciplinary academic research conversations, uniting scholars across generations and geography to tackle vital 21st-century questions and foster creative research collaborations.
The Institute for Humane Studies, an independent non-profit affiliate of George Mason University, has been collaborating with faculty and graduate students for the past 60 years, bringing together scholars and offering research grants to faculty and graduate students across a range of academic disciplines.
In 2021, they began using Digital Science products Dimensions via Google Big Query and Altmetric. Being a non-profit organization that invests in scholarly research and builds scholarly community across institutions and disciplines, The Institute for Humane Studies has distinctive uses for Dimensions products.
Dimensions data for fostering collaborations
The Dimensions search function enables the Institute to discover which scholars are working on specific issues, and with the built-in integration with VosViewer, they can quickly see the level of engagement of scholars and disciplines in the academic literature through citations and coauthorship links.
This can highlight potential areas to convene relevant, but presently disconnected, scholars. Their scholarly gatherings aim to stimulate collaboration and knowledge sharing, and they use the same data to ascertain whether or not new scholarly connections have been established after their events. They combine Dimensions data with information from their own CRM system within Google Big Query to track this.
Dimensions for building better partnerships
The Institute for Humane Studies’ dedicated relationship management team builds on the information gathered from Dimensions and engages with faculty partners to develop scholarly programming and events. The knowledge gained by conducting events is captured in their internal CRM, allowing them to combine the bibliometric information in Dimensions with the firm-specific knowledge gathered by their own team. This improves their use and interpretation of Dimensions data in understanding the academic landscape and fostering productive convenings.
Dimensions and Altmetric for strategic grantmaking
The Institute also uses Dimensions to assess the impact of grantmaking. Awardees are assigned a grant number, which when mentioned in the text or acknowledgements of an article, can be identified in a Dimensions search.
The Institute also utilizes Dimensions to evaluate grant impact, integrating it with Altmetric and their internal grant data to streamline report generation. This enables them to track the impact of supported projects over time and effectively communicate the impact to donors and stakeholders, a critical focus for any non-profit organization.
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