Access to Altmetric and Dimensions data is now boosted with Dimensions on BigQuery for researchers in the scientometrics field

Tuesday 22 July 2025

Digital Science today reaffirms its commitment to supporting the global scientometric research community and the study of scholarly literature, by relaunching its Scientometric Researcher Access to Data (SRAD) program.

This revitalized initiative will offer scientometric researchers streamlined, no-cost access to Digital Science’s Altmetric and Dimensions data, and is now further expanded by offering access to Dimensions on BigQuery.

The SRAD program is available to scientometrics researchers involved in non-commercial scientometric studies, empowering them to more easily answer system-wide research questions about scholarly literature and its impact.

To lead this important effort and build a thriving global community of expert users, Digital Science has appointed Kathryn Weber-Boer to the position of Director Scientometrics – Scientometric Researcher Engagement. Ms Weber-Boer brings deep expertise in scientometrics, academic engagement, and advanced analytics. 

Ms Weber-Boer said: “This program plays an important role in Digital Science’s commitment to open research and improving research. I am honoured to be in the position of driving strategic outreach, program design, and community leadership, to help researchers maximize the impact of Digital Science tools.

“By expanding access to Dimensions on GBQ, we’re excited to enable scientometrics researchers to answer complex questions with big data, exploring and linking more datapoints, and connecting our world-leading Dimensions data to other open datasets.

“The SRAD program is built around key principles of accessibility, responsible data use, and community empowerment. Through tailored training and dynamic community engagement, it’s our hope that we can contribute to driving innovation in the fields of Scientometrics, Research Policy, and Innovation Studies,” she said.

About Dimensions

Part of Digital Science, Dimensions hosts the largest collection of interconnected global research data, re-imagining research discovery with access to grants, publications, clinical trials, patents and policy documents all in one place. Follow Dimensions on Bluesky, X and LinkedIn.

About Altmetric

Altmetric is a leading provider of alternative research metrics, helping everyone involved in research gauge the impact of their work. We serve diverse markets including universities, institutions, government, publishers, corporations, and those who fund research. Our powerful technology searches thousands of online sources, revealing where research is being shared and discussed. Teams can use our powerful Altmetric Explorer application to interrogate the data themselves, embed our dynamic ‘badges’ into their webpages, or get expert insights from Altmetric’s consultants. Altmetric is part of the Digital Science group, dedicated to making the research experience simpler and more productive by applying pioneering technology solutions. Find out more at altmetric.com and follow @altmetric on X and @altmetric.com on Bluesky.

About Digital Science

Digital Science is an AI-focused technology company providing innovative solutions to complex challenges faced by researchers, universities, funders, industry and publishers. We work in partnership to advance global research for the benefit of society. Through our brands – Altmetric, Dimensions, Figshare, IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, metaphacts, OntoChem, Overleaf, ReadCube, Symplectic, and Writefull – we believe when we solve problems together, we drive progress for all. Visit digital-science.com and follow Digital Science on Bluesky, on X or on LinkedIn.

Media contact

David Ellis, Press, PR & Social Manager, Digital Science: Mobile +61 447 783 023, d.ellis@digital-science.com

The post Digital Science relaunches Scientometric Researcher Access to Data (SRAD) program appeared first on Digital Science.

In honour of the tenth anniversary of the Altmetrics Manifesto, Altmetric has published The State of Altmetrics, which explores a decade of innovation and growth in the field. The report also features contributions from leading thinkers on topics including:

• Ethical uses of altmetrics
• Using machine learning to improve altmetrics
• Altmetrics as “sensors” to detect the spread of disease
• What makes researchers more likely to use altmetrics
• Predictions for the future of altmetrics

Download Now

The post The state of altmetrics appeared first on Digital Science.

Developed in collaboration with over 100 leading research organisations around the world, Dimensions is a unique platform combining data about publications, data sets, grants, patents, clinical trials, and policy documents. Our database spans the broader global scientific landscape to enable individual researchers as well as research funders, research organizations, and publishers to discover, analyse, and understand multiple aspects of the research life cycle.

In this chapter, Juergen Wastl introduces the development and deployment of the Dimensions platform and describes the breadth of available functionality with a focus on bibliometric applications and question sets that can be applied to the academic and broader outcomes of research, and gather insights to inform future strategy.

Read the Chapter

The post A bibliometrician toolbox appeared first on Digital Science.

Research metrics, closely related to statistics and network analysis, benefit greatly from visualizations. This chapter from Handbook Bibliometrics, written by Helene Draux, introduces some guidelines for visualizations before describing the visualizations frequently used.

Helene introduces Chart Chooser and then considers the characteristics of the data. This includes either static or interactive graphs that are common in statistics, which she complements with advanced graphs more able to represent the links between scholarly objects. These flow diagrams are the opportunity to get an overview of the problem and dig deeper in it.

The post Visualization of research metrics appeared first on Digital Science.

Find out more about Digital Science’s consultancy team’s work

Our consultancy team

We deliver reports and solutions to research policy and management clients.

Find out more

Read our blog

Keep up-to-date with our latest reports, analysis and work in the Digital Science Blog.

Find out more

Supporting REF2021

Discover how our portfolio
companies support UK HEIs.

Find out more

The post Bibliometric coupling of mental health research appeared first on Digital Science.

In this paper published in Frontiers Research Metrics and Analytics, Daniel W Hook, Simon J Porter, Hélène Draux and Christian T Herzog propose the concept of “real-time” bibliometrics as a new capability for researchers, policymakers and analysts across the sector.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted a different set of needs to analyze trends in scholarship as they occur: Real-time bibliometrics. The combination of full-text search, daily data updates, a broad set of scholarly objects including pre-prints and a wider set of data fields for analysis, broadens opportunities for a different style of analysis. A subset of these emerging capabilities is discussed and three basic analyses are presented as illustrations of the potential for real-time bibliometrics.

Read more

The post Dimensions as a resource for analyzing COVID-19 appeared first on Digital Science.

Mike Taylor is Head of Metrics Development at Digital Science. Before joining us he spent many years working in Elsevier’s R&D group and in the Metrics and Analytics Team. Mike works with many community groups, including FORCE11, RDA and NISO, and is well known in the scholarly metrics community. He’s also notorious amongst the Oxford theatrical scene as an actor, producer and director with ElevenOne Theatre. In his spare time he provides the entertainment for many a hen night with the murder-mystery company, Smoke and Mirrors. Mike is studying for a PhD in alternative metrics at the University of Wolverhampton.

MeToo and the Scientometrics of Sexual Harassment

Until the Harvey Weinstein scandal of October 2017, the field of sexual harassment will have been unknown to most academics and bibliometricians. Indeed, the fact that it is a known topic of funding and research – albeit on a very small scale indeed – will have largely been a mystery to most of us. A chance conversation with a colleague who wanted to look at the influence of feminist theory lead us to examine the field of sexual harassment, and the influence of the #MeToo phenomenon on research funding and focus. This sheds a particular light on the interaction between academia and society, the need for readiness and a willingness to adapt to new circumstances amongst the academic community, and the way in which social media can shape and communicate public discourse in a research field.

Examination of Google search engine queries for the terms “sexual harassment” and “MeToo” produces an interesting graph with several features. The two most prominent peaks for ‘MeToo’, a term that had previously not been widely used, occur in October 2017 and late 2018. Although queries around ‘MeToo’ fall quite sharply in both cases, it remains a substantial search query. The ‘MeToo’ phenomenon has had a clear impact in searches related to sexual harassment, boosting the number of queries by around 25% compared to the baseline average. It is interesting to note that the second peak in 2018 doesn’t have any effect on the volume of searches around ‘sexual harassment’, which remains relatively steady during this time.

Figure 1 Worldwide search engine results for ‘sexual harassment’ and ‘MeToo’

If we dive deeper into this data, we can start to make more sense of it. By filtering the data to show only results from the USA, the second peak disappears. We can clearly see the direct influence the volume of searches for ‘MeToo’ has had on the volume of searches for ‘sexual harassment’. Following an increased number of searches for ‘MeToo’, we see an even more dramatic increase in the number of searches carried out for ‘sexual harassment’. This trend is common for most European and predominantly English-speaking countries.

Figure 2 USA-located search engine results for ‘sexual harassment’ and ‘MeToo’

Figure 3 India-located search engine results for ‘sexual harassment’ and ‘MeToo’

So what about the second peak? Where does this come from? Further analysis reveals that the late 2018 peak in global searches was a down to separate wave of the #MeToo phenomenon which occurred in India. Although its impact on Google search volume was larger than the original October 2017 peak, it did not result in a long-term increase in searches for ‘sexual harassment’ in India, nor was there any sustained rise in the number of ‘MeToo’ searches in this country.

This analysis shows that the #MeToo phenomenon was a global phenomenon, but one that has had different qualities and different levels of impact in different countries around the world. In the USA, UK, and other countries, #MeToo appears to have unlocked a substantial discourse around sexual harassment; in other countries, it has not had that effect. Interestingly however, from a scientometric perspective, #MeToo has also had an additional effect: this social movement has stimulated explosive growth in research on sexual harassment.

The altmetric data for research in this space shows a number of interesting trends in discourse in this field, and in particular shines a light on activity within different communities. Using the Timeline feature in Altmetric Explorer, we can see that the number of tweets linking to research being carried out in this area largely mirrors the volume of related searches in the USA: they rise dramatically in October 2017, and remain at this higher level. In this case, it is possible that the higher volume of research being published may lead to increased levels of Twitter engagement in itself.

Figure 4 Tweets linking to research about ‘sexual harassment’ and ‘MeToo’ in Altmetric

The number of mentions about this research in mainstream media and blogs shows a less dramatic trend, but nevertheless shows consistently higher coverage in the months following October 2017. Interestingly, it also shows a separate phenomenon, not easily visible in these graphs due to lack of space; the growth of discourse about this research area in the two years preceding the Weinstein scandal. This growth is reflected in the volume of research output in the years 2015-2017 when research volume doubled, albeit from a very low number).

If you spend just a few moments looking at this research on the free version of Dimensions, you will have a good grasp of the nature of work being carried on in this space: very practical, multidisciplinary, and with a very strong focus on the downstream effects of sexual harassment on women, women’s careers, professions, and societies. Likewise, by spending a little time on the blogs that were reporting the research in the years before 2017, you start to sense both the frustration and the anger experienced by people working in this space, but also the coherent and focussed nature of their work. Research published in the decade before 2015 is very different:  although we hesitate to make judgements, it feels like a more coolly academic area of work.

Figure 5 Mainstream media linking to research about ‘sexual harassment’ and ‘MeToo’ in Altmetric

Figure 6 Blogs linking to research about ‘sexual harassment’ and ‘MeToo’ in Altmetric

The altmetric data suggests that there is a shifting discourse and sense of rhetoric within this research community as it moves towards the formation of a unified community of people with shared interests; a proto-network of academics who are willing and able to address a real-world crisis with research. The publications output in Dimensions confirms this suspicion: we can see the growth in annual output of sexual harassment research up to 2017, and then the explosive growth in academic publications following the Weinstein scandal, rising from 500 publications a year to 5,000. Mendeley Readers suggests a similar growth in academic interest, presaging a substantial expansion in future citation rates and usage for this relatively small research community.

Figure 7 Publication growth for research in ’sexual harassment’ OR ‘MeToo’

Figure 8 Research grants in ’sexual harassment’ OR ‘MeToo’

The annual rate of publications and readership has multiplied tenfold. A similar rise can be seen in the growth of research funding in this area, with total funds rising from $1.8M in 2014 to $6.3M in 2019 – a number already exceeded by an unprecedented $6.9M of funding in 2020.

The different pieces of research data available to us using Altmetric and Dimensions can be woven together to create a fascinating narrative of a small and previously poorly funded research topic. The years leading up to the events of October 2017 are characterised by a relatively small group of researchers, growing steadily, but able to connect their research with issues in the wider world, and with their research able to find an audience in both mainstream media and the blogosphere. In the aftermath of Weinstein, that community finds a new audience in the general public, who are willing and able to engage with existing research. This, in turn, enables academics to create more research, getting more attention from the public, from other academics and, crucially, in research funding.

The post #MeToo and the scientometrics of sexual harassment appeared first on Digital Science.

London, UK, 8am, September 3 — Digital Science, a leader in scholarly technology, is pleased to announce a collaboration with the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI) that will give ISSI members enhanced access to Dimensions and Altmetric data for scientometric research.

ISSI is an international association of scholars and professionals active in the interdisciplinary study science of science, science communication, and science policy. The ISSI community advances the boundaries of quantitative science studies, from theoretical, empirical, and practical perspectives.

Starting on October 1 2019, ISSI members will formally be invited to apply for no-cost access to Altmetric and Dimensions web tools and APIs. A committee of ISSI members will provide expert assessment of researchers’ applications and guidance on using Altmetric and Dimensions in their research.

This partnership builds upon Altmetric and Dimensions’ existing no-cost data sharing programs, which are currently open to all researchers conducting non-commercial scientometric research, while providing ISSI members with additional expert advice on early-stage research.

There is an increasing demand for high quality assessments of the science and innovation ecosystem. Scientometric expertise is crucial for ensuring that these assessments are done responsibly and can be relied on as a trusted source of information for policymakers and the public alike. The necessary data for these analyses, however, is often expensive and limited in scope. In order to provide timely and comprehensive analyses, it clear that scientometricians should have direct access to:

• a diverse set of contextual research information that is fully linked together: making it possible to trace a path between grants, clinical trials, publications, patents and policy documents; and,
• research-related data and information with as few constraints as possible, enabling efficient large-scale analysis.

The collaboration marks a significant step forward in how Dimensions and Altmetric data are made available and used by the community to create new scientometric indicators. The partnership will also open up fresh research opportunities for exploration of the more than 100 million publications and 1 billion citations indexed in Dimensions (interlinked with millions of grants and patents, and hundreds of thousands of clinical trial records and policy documents), and 108 million mentions of 13 million scholarly works captured by Altmetric across seventeen distinct online platforms.

Cassidy Sugimoto, President ISSI: “Equity, transparency, and rigor should be the cornerstones of contemporary research. This partnership provides all of our members with access to high-quality data, enhances replicability and reproducibility within the field, and provides an extremely rich dataset for analyses. I’m delighted to join in this partnership which will bring strong benefits to members of our Society and to the field at large.”

Christian Herzog, CEO Dimensions, said: “In the past, access to data has limited the ability of the research community to develop new research approaches and apply their findings effectively in the field. We aim to change this through our commitment to providing no-cost access to Dimensions and Altmetric data for noncommercial scientometric research, enabling the scientometrics community to focus on doing the research rather than struggling to get access to the information they need.”

Notes to editors:

About Digital Science
Digital Science is a technology company working to make research more efficient. We invest in, nurture and support innovative businesses and technologies that make all parts of the research process more open and effective. Our portfolio includes brands including Altmetric, Anywhere Access, Dimensions, Figshare, ReadCube, Symplectic, IFI Claims, GRID, Overleaf, CC Technology, Gigantum, Ripeta and Writefull. We believe that together, we can help researchers make a difference. Visit www.digital-science.com and follow @digitalsci on Twitter.

About ISSI
The International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI) is an international association of scholars and professionals active in the interdisciplinary study science of science, science communication, and science policy. This community focuses on quantitative approaches to the study of science, including informetrics, scientometrics, and webometrics. Visit https://issi-society.org/

About Dimensions
Dimensions is a modern, innovative, linked research knowledge system that re-imagines discovery and access to research. Developed by Digital Science in collaboration with over 100 leading research organizations around the world, Dimensions brings together grants, publications, citations, alternative metrics, clinical trials and patents to deliver a platform that enables users to find and access the most relevant information faster, analyze the academic and broader outcomes of research, and gather insights to inform future strategy. Visit Dimensions’ website at https://dimensions.ai and find us on Twitter @DSDimensions.

About Altmetric
Altmetric’s mission is to track and analyze the online activity around scholarly literature. We collate what people are saying about published research outputs in scholarly and non-scholarly forums like the mainstream media, policy documents, social networks, and blogs to provide a more robust picture of the influence and reach of scholarly work. Altmetric works with some of the biggest publishers, funders, and institutions around the world to deliver this data in an accessible and reliable format. Altmetric is supported by Digital Science. Find out more at altmetric.com and follow us on Twitter @altmetric.

Media contact

David Ellis, Press, PR & Social Manager, Digital Science: Mobile +61 447 783 023, d.ellis@digital-science.com

The post Digital Science and the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics join forces appeared first on Digital Science.

Tune into our latest thought leadership webinar, “Grand challenges for academic publishing: Defining Data & The New Scientometrics” on Wednesday 22 November at 3-4pm GMT (10-11am EDT). 

Publishers, intermediaries, technology providers, institutions, libraries and funders are all part of the scholarly communication industry. Each of these stakeholders have their own specific needs but do have one thing in common; a need to understand the research landscape in a way that informs strategic decisions. The nature of those decisions vary by organization type but might include title acquisition, editorial strategy, or investment in technology and infrastructure.

Traditionally, research has been classified by discipline and measured by citations, but that framework is changing. A fundamental shift has occurred over the last two decades with research increasingly being funded, published and organized around specific challenges and problems such as climate change, or Alzheimer’s Disease. At the same time, funders and governments are expanding the ways that they assess research to include direct economic and social impact, which in turn changes researcher incentives and needs.

The new framework for academia is more complex than the old and requires new approaches and tools in order to understand and quantify it. In this webinar, you will hear about some of the work being done in topic modelling, scientometrics, research classification and assessment.

Join our expert panel as they explore these issues, attendees will take away concrete examples of approaches they might take in order to more completely understand the needs and behaviours of their customers and stakeholders that in turn inform better and faster strategic decision making.

You will learn about:

• How the structure of academic research is changing and what that means for your business
• The cutting-edge techniques that are changing the way we classify research and build taxonomies
• How publishers, universities and governments are using new types of data to make strategic decisions
• Some simple ways that you can begin to harness scientometrics to help your business

Thought leaders speaking on the webinar:

Phill Jones, Director of Publishing Innovation, Digital Science

Phill has spent much of his career working on projects that use technology to accelerate scientific discovery. He joined us from portfolio company ReadCube, where he held the position of VP of Business Development. Prior to Digital Science, he was the Editorial Director at Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), the first academic video journal. Phill is a member the SSP educational committee and the STM association early career publishers and future lab committees.

In a former life, Phill was a cross-disciplinary research scientist. He held a faculty position at Harvard Medical School, working in bio-physics and neuroscience, despite having originally started out as a plasma physicist at the UK atomic energy authority. He has also worked as a microscopy consultant and scientific advisor for a number of startups and small companies.

Phill lives in Edinburgh with his wife and two children. He holds a 2nd dan black belt in TaeKwon Do and occasionally enjoys a dram of single malt whisky, although not at the same time.

Helene Draux, Research Data Scientist

Before joining the Digital Science Consultancy team, Hélène worked both in Academia and the private sector as a computational social scientist. Her work included the development of Havfriluftsliv, a web-mapping participative platform to facilitate the participation of the public in Marine Spatial Planning in Denmark, and a web-mapping platform to facilitate discovery of places described in Trap, the Danish landscape encyclopedia.
Hélène obtained her PhD in social geography from the Cities Institute (London Metropolitan University). Her work was funded by SECOA, a EU 7th Framework project on the adaptation of coastal cities to sea-level rise, and her research focused on the inclusive participation of the general population in decisions about the future of open spaces in Portsmouth.
Hélène has worked on many consultancy projects. For the CWASU research institute, she worked on a project for the UK charity SOLACE, to map the evolution of abused women’s social network over a two-year period. For S+G, a landscape architect company, she built a survey that incorporated a 2-week period of smartphone location/transportation tracking of students and staff on the campus of DTU, Denmark.

Mike Taylor, Head of Metrics Development, Digital Science

Mike Taylor is Head of Metrics Development at Digital Science. He has spent many years working in Elsevier’s R&D group and in the Metrics and Analytics Team. Mike works with many community groups, including FORCE11, RDA and NISO, and is well known in the scholarly metrics community. Mike is studying for a PhD in alternative metrics at the University of Wolverhampton.

Host: Laura Wheeler, Digital Science

Laura Wheeler is the Head of Digital Communications for Digital Science and will host the webinar.

The post Digital Science Webinar: Grand Challenges for Academic Publishing: Defining Data & The New Scientometrics appeared first on Digital Science.