Unique platform to connect researchers across the globe

Updated on: Friday, November 11, 2011

ResearchGate is a professional network enabling scientific communication among research scholars across the globe.

Ijad Madisch came up with the novel idea to create a platform to bridge the gap in scientific communication and collaboration amongst researchers across all disciplines while taking part in the Biomedical Sciences Exchange Program between Harvard University and Hanover University in his native Germany.

Since its launch in 2008, ResearchGate has become the largest professional network for researchers and scientists, boasting a membership of over one million users from 192 different countries worldwide.

In India alone, currently there are over 200,000 researchers using the network, making it the second largest population on ResearchGate, after the USA.

Members can represent themselves within the scientific community by creating a professional profile resembling a research CV.

The site provides facilty to upload full text publications to their profiles enabling them to share their research with their peers and fellow members, through a process known as Self Archiving.

Sharing of these publications with the scientific community could have a very positive impact on research as a whole, as Madisch pointed out: "Researchers dont publish negative results, they only publish positive results. But the negative results can lead to positive results." All of the full text publications uploaded by the authors can be downloaded for free and researchers can also search through around 45,000,000 abstracts with one simple search.

Dr Rajiv Gupta, a lecturer at the Harvard Medical School and MIT uses the Topics to post his lecture notes and says “there is so much activity online that he doesnt have to answer the questions himself because someone else already has.”

ResearchGate has a job board specialising in science, offering more than 14,000 international vacancies, updated daily; it is the largest of its kind. In India ResearchGate collaborates with the major Pharmaceutical, Engineering, Medical, and Universities to post current jobs in the field of science and research.

ResearchGate is completely free use website www.researchgate.net

Unique platform to connect researchers across the globe

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