Elsevier, a world-leading provider of technical and medical information products and services, has today launched a Brexit Resource Centre (www.elsevier.com/connect/brexit-resource-centre). The site provides free access to comprehensive research data, metrics and other online resources to help researchers, institutions, funders and government decision makers within and outside of the UK to monitor effects of the referendum on the UK’s research base, and support decision-making based on this data.
Dr. Nick Fowler, Managing Director Research Networks at Elsevier, said, “As the UK transitions out of the EU, it’s important that decisions affecting the success of the UK’s research sector are evidence-based. We are making data available to help academia and government track key success factors such as collaboration and researcher mobility, which contribute to the UK’s scientific excellence. We also hope that this free resource centre will be valuable to key decision-makers outside of the UK.”
The Brexit Resource Centre currently includes:
- The UK Research Factsheet providing a pre-referendum baseline overview of key UK research data such as quality and quantity of published articles over time, collaboration, funding income from UK and EU sources, and researcher mobility. As time progresses, new data will enable us to observe the potential effect of the EU referendum on these metrics. Data presented in the Factsheet shows, for example, that:
- Between 2011 and 2015 the UK’s research workforce grew year-on-year by 8%.
- During the same period, the UK’s research funding coming from the UK grew at an annual rate of 6%, while funding for UK research from the EU grew at an annual rate of 13.0%.
- The UK’s most prolific collaborating countries are the United States, Germany, France and Italy; co-authored publications with the US account for the largest share of the UK’s collaborative output, and publications with France show the highest citation impact among these four collaborators.
- Social media sentiment analyses of post-referendum conversations among members of the researcher community.
- Free access to published research articles relating to the UK’s intended withdrawal from the European Union (‘Brexit’).
Data and resources within the Brexit Resource Centre will be expanded and updated on a continuing basis, allowing for the identification of trends over time. Additional metrics will be added in the coming months.
www.elsevier.com/connect/brexit-resource-centre
