The Vice-Principal Research Portfolio has spearheaded a new initiative to support the Queen’s research community and enable interdisciplinary collaborations. The Research Discovery Network (RDN) is a digital platform designed to spark new engagement with groups in academia, industry, media, and communities from across campus to around the world.

The RDN builds off the success of Queen’s Translational Institute of Medicine (TIME), which has used the system since 2017. The platform has enabled TIME to showcase the breadth of their translational research, identify opportunities for members to collaborate, and maintain a directory for the state-of-the art technologies available for use at Queen’s. The university is now extending that network to researchers looking for profile and engagement for their own research, that of their group or lab, or sharing their research resources.

The two main features of the RDN include hosting a public profile and CV management. The profile tool helps researchers showcase their research interests, active projects, publications, and media engagements for optimized discovery on the network. Researchers are also able to leverage the network’s robust topic tagging system to find other researchers at the university to build collaborations and connections. The RDN also supports CV management through direct integration with the Canada Common CV (CCV) system. Researchers can simultaneously update their CCV and their public research profile while using a more intuitive and streamlined interface.

Profile-building is currently underway with information and resources, such as drop-in and training sessions and direct support, available on the Vice-Principal Research Portfolio website. A how-to webinar is also scheduled for June 22 with registration available as part of the Resources for Research at Queen’s (R4R@Q) series. If members of the research community have any questions or are looking for further information, a direct contact form is also available.