UK knowledge landscape tool launches
A new online tool will help the Council for Science and Technology (CST) to map the research landscape in the UK.
The CST has launched a project to understand better how the UK’s research community defines itself and the links that exist between research disciplines.
Researchers can visit www.ukknowledgelandscape.co.uk and provide information about themselves (such as: position, research interests and collaborators), their perceptions of how their research areas fit within the landscape of connected disciplines and the main pieces of research infrastructure in their areas of expertise.
Government Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir Mark Walport, said:
The knowledge landscape tool is an exciting and exceptional approach to developing a clear overview of science research in the UK. This will allow the research community to build a stronger and evidence base for science.
CST co-chair Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell said:
The Council for Science and Technology places a high priority on maintaining and developing the UK’s excellence in research. We believe this crowdsourcing project will help us build a clearer picture of what the UK needs to do to secure its lead. I hope that as many working researchers as possible will take some time to contribute.
Once a sufficiently large number of users have submitted their views, partial statistical analysis will be used to generate a ‘consensus view’ of how disciplines connect with and rely on each other. This output will then be made publicly available.