Enhancements Coming to Edinburgh Research Explorer

A project has been launched to make the Edinburgh Research Explorer a more user friendly, searchable directory that will allow research staff and students to showcase their work and seek collaboration across the globe.

A small working group of research administrators are piloting wider access to the Edinburgh Research Explorer (ERE). Powered by the industry-leading Research Information Management System, Pure, the working group is working to make the ERE a user-friendly and searchable directory of Postgraduate Research (PGR) students and staff at the University.   

All PGR students are required to have uploaded a copy of their completed thesis in order to finish their course, but this project aims to give students the opportunity to customise their personal profiles on the ERE and to make their profiles publicly available. Researcher profiles on the ERE are publicly viewable and search engine optimised, so people interested in collaborating with, or searching for, University of Edinburgh research will be able to find descriptions of relevant PGR student activities after searching in an internet browser or at www.research.ed.ac.uk   

The public profiles are customisable and can contain links to published works, a biography and personal photo, employment history, a global map to visualise international connections, contact details and more. The fuller completion of these profiles allows PGR students and academics to indicate their availability for collaboration and the site can be used to search for funding and networking opportunities.   

The pilot group for this project will draft processes on how to use ERE to enhance research activities, sharing and answering calls for collaboration and searching for funding opportunities. The working group and project team hope that PGR students across the University will be given this increased level of access to their Pure accounts in the 2023/24 academic year.   

By providing a more in-depth and complete research profile on ERE this project will also contribute to the University’s next Research Excellent Framework (REF) statement, which is used in the UK to assess the quality of research in Higher Education Institutions.  

To view the profiles of our student and staff researchers visit www.research.ed.ac.uk