Information services provider Thomson Reuters, US, has announced that it has begun working with thousands of institutions and research facilities to produce a new resource. The initiative, called the Global Institutional Profiles Project, will seek to create data-driven portraits of globally significant research institutions. It would look to combine peer review, scholarly outputs, citation patterns, funding levels and faculty characteristics in one comprehensive database.
The dataset can be packaged and analysed to different specifications, allowing organisations to receive custom information for their specific needs. The Times Higher Education, a London-based weekly newspaper that covers higher education issues, is the first to request a customised dataset to produce an improved version of its annual World University Rankings. The publication will work closely with Thomson Reuters to create a balanced, transparent methodology to support its rankings.
The Global Institutional Profiles Project has already begun with a worldwide survey of opinion leaders at key research institutions. The advice they provide will inform the project both in terms of data collected and methodologies used. The results of the opinion survey will be published in the first quarter of 2010.
Search for more reference tools
Discuss this NEWS
