Australia's 'Group of Eight' universities have launched a new online tool to make it easier to identify the top researchers in a particular field.
The group comprises Australia's eight top institutions: Australian National University, the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland, the University of New South Wales, Monash University, the University of Western Australia and the University of Adelaide.
The group's new initiative new tool, known as the Knowledge Gateway, lists all of the research papers published by academic staff at the eight universities in a searchable database.
Finding an expert
The main goal of the Gateway is to allow businesses to identify and contact those with the expertize required to solve problems which require advanced, subject-specific knowledge. In this way it is similar to the ‘find an expert’ services offered by Oxbridge and Ivy League institutions.
Go8 Chair, Professor Paul Greenfield explained the thinking behind the Knowledge Gateway at the launch: “World-class research and innovative activities occur every day in Australia's universities, but it can be difficult for individuals and industry to identify and access specific expertize.”
As well as businesses, another group of potential beneficiaries identified by the Go8 are research students seeking supervisors, or simply students who wish to study a very specific topic. Indeed, it could also be used in a fashion similar to bibliographical academic databases such as ICOMOS.
Targeted at businesses
However, businesses are the main target audience, and accordingly the Gateway utilizes a key word system, which allows for more general searches for those who are less familiar with specific academic terms.
Searches can be narrowed to particular universities if the user has identified their research output and staff in the required field as being particularly strong, or require an expert in close proximity to a given location.
The database was developed in conjunction with Funnelback Website (which grew out of research at ANU) and Enterprise Search. Advice was also received from Enterprise Connect, the Australian government’s initiative to provide support to small businesses.
At present Group of Eight universities produce around 70% of Australia’s research output. However, talks are currently in progress that could see other Australian universities adding their output.