1.
Examining Funding Data to
Predict the Future of Research
Dr. Tom Lickiss

2.
A portfolio company of
Overview
• Introduction to ÜberResearch
• The Research Timeline
• Aggregating and Exploring Research Funding data
• Staying at the Cutting Edge, and Predicting the
Future
• Integrating data sources - moving towards the
complete picture

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A portfolio company of

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A portfolio company of
A team of developers, scientists and
experts with more than 10 years
experience delivering solutions and
services for funding and research
institutions.

5.
A portfolio company of
A team of developers, scientists and
experts with more than 10 years
experience delivering solutions and
services for funding and research
institutions.
Portfolio company of Digital Science,
the younger sibling of the Nature
Publishing group.

6.
A portfolio company of
The Research Timeline

7.
A portfolio company of
From Idea to Impact (Inputs and Outputs)
Idea
Citations
Publications
and Patents

8.
A portfolio company of
Idea
Grant
Application
Grant
Awarded
Conference
Publications
and Patents
Citations
From Idea to Impact (Inputs and Outputs)

9.
A portfolio company of
1 – 5 years 2 – 3 years
Idea
Grant
Application
Grant
Awarded
Conference
Citations
3 - 8 years of relative darkness
From Idea to Impact (Inputs and Outputs)
Publications
and Patents

10.
A portfolio company of
1 – 5 years 2 – 3 years
Idea
Grant
Application
Grant
Awarded
Conference
Citations
Publications and citations are very useful to tell you what has happened. Grants
tell you what is happening and what will happen.
3 - 8 years of relative darkness
From Idea to Impact (Inputs and Outputs)
Publications
and Patents

11.
A portfolio company of
The Research Landscape
What does research funding look like?

12.
A portfolio company of
What does research funding look like?
The Research Landscape

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A portfolio company of
What does research funding look like?
The Research Landscape

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A portfolio company of
What does research funding look like?
We help the research and funding communities understand what is going on in
research globally, and how they are involved in it.
The Research Landscape

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A portfolio company of
Aggregating and Exploring Research
Funding data

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A portfolio company of

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A portfolio company of
Millions of Projects, at over a trillion US Dollars, from hundreds of
research funders around the World.
We collect, clean, and disambiguate data from hundreds of sources in
order to develop a body of data that can be instantly functional.

18.
A portfolio company of
Grants Publications
Content Consolidation NLP
Disambiguation Document Matching
The Data Principle

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A portfolio company of
Grants Publications
Person and institution disambiguation
Internal Data
The Data Principle

20.
A portfolio company of
Grants Publications
Person and institution disambiguation
Internal Data
The Data Principle
Grants Publications
Person and institution disambiguation
Internal Data

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A portfolio company of
Grants Publications
Person and institution disambiguation
Internal Data
Content Consolidation NLP
Document Matching
The Data Principle
Grants Publications
Person and institution disambiguation
Internal Data
Machine Learning

22.
A portfolio company of
Grants Publications
Person and institution disambiguation
Internal Data
Content Consolidation NLP
Document Matching
The Data Principle
Grants Publications
Person and institution disambiguation
Internal Data
Search Trend Analysis
Portfolio Analysis /
Comparison
ÜberWizard for
ORCID
Machine Learning
This approach then gives us the ability to interrogate the data in any desired way.

23.
A portfolio company of
Comparisons and Trends
See topic trends over time

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A portfolio company of
Comparisons and Trends
See topic trends over time
Who are the main funders?

25.
A portfolio company of
Comparisons and Trends
See topic trends over time
Who are the main funders?
Which Institutions are receiving the funding?

26.
A portfolio company of
Landscape Analysis
– Brexit!
With the data disambiguated and
searchable by any parameter,
landscape analysis is extremely
simple.
A report on the potential effects
of Brexit, before the vote,
became a major source of
predictive information after it.

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A portfolio company of

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Availability of
information is now
helping institutions
predict how Brexit
might affect them.

29.
Availability of
information is now
helping institutions
predict how Brexit
might affect them.

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A portfolio company of
Using Research Funding to Look into the
Future

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A portfolio company of
Looking into the Future
Approximately 10% of our data details either on-
going projects, or projects which have not yet
started.
This means the nature of the data itself is
forward-looking, and it will be the first place
where new trends in research will be evidenced.
Importantly, it is also a different type of
information. It is describing what is intended,
rather than what has already happened.

32.
A portfolio company of
A Topic Example - Optogenetics
The science of using light to control the electrical activity of neural
cells or to use light as an indicator of neural activity. This is
commonly done using proteins introduced using genetic techniques.

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A portfolio company of
Optogenetics
Papers
Oct. 2006 – First paper published using
the word optogenetic (with Miesenböck
as one author).
Funded Projects
Sept. 2003 – NIDA funds a project by
Gero Miesenböck entitled “Genetically
Encoded Phototriggers of Neuronal
Activity”.
Nov. 2007 – First funded project in the
Dimensions database which contains the
word optogenetic – from the BBSRC in
the UK.
The appearance of the key optogenetic protein “channelrhodopsin” in funded
projects and publications over time. If only the publications could be seen,
would this give the same impression?

34.
A portfolio company of
Optopatch Timeline of Key Events
Papers Funded Projects
A continuation of optogenetics enabling complete activation and
recording from electrical cells using only light and recording with
super high frame per second speeds.
April 2014 – NINDS funds project for
Optopatch starting in April 2014 to finish
March 2016.
June 2014 – Hochbaum et al. publish
Optopatch method in Nature Methods
(online version).

35.
A portfolio company of
Optopatch Timeline of Key Events
Papers Funded Projects
A continuation of optogenetics enabling complete activation and
recording from electrical cells using only light and recording with
super high frame per second speeds.
April 2014 – NINDS funds project for
Optopatch starting in April 2014 to finish
March 2016.
June 2014 – Hochbaum et al. publish
Optopatch method in Nature Methods
(online version).
Nov. 2014 – NHLBI funds project for same
group for applying the technology to heart
cells assay for cardiotoxicity testing.
No further papers yet published on this
topic.
?

36.
A portfolio company of
Brainbow
A method to cause cells to become
fluorescent in many different colours so
that their shapes and connections to
other cells can be more easily examined.
Weissman, Lichtman and Sanes, 2007.

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A portfolio company of
Brainbow Timeline of Key Events
Papers Funded Projects
Nov. 2007 - Original technical Brainbow
paper published by Livet et al.

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A portfolio company of
Brainbow Timeline of Key Events
Papers Funded Projects
Nov. 2007 - Original technical Brainbow
paper published by Livet et al.
2008 – Three grants awarded including the
word “Brainbow”. Two from NIMH and
NINDS to the original Brainbow group at
Harvard, and a third from The Royal Society
to work at UCL in UK

39.
A portfolio company of
Brainbow Timeline of Key Events
Papers Funded Projects
Nov. 2007 - Original technical Brainbow
paper published by Livet et al.
2008 – Three grants awarded including the
word “Brainbow”. Two from NIMH and
NINDS to the original Brainbow group at
Harvard, and a third from The Royal Society
to work at UCL in UKNov. 2009 - First primary research paper
published using Brainbow technology.
2011 - Eleven papers published based on
Brainbow technology.

40.
A portfolio company of
Brainbow Timeline of Key Events
Papers Funded Projects
Nov. 2007 - Original technical Brainbow
paper published by Livet et al.
2008 – Three grants awarded including the
word “Brainbow”. Two from NIMH and
NINDS to the original Brainbow group at
Harvard, and a third from The Royal Society
to work at UCL in UKNov. 2009 - First primary research paper
published using Brainbow technology.
2009 – NINDS award grant to the Sanes Lab
for the development of the “Next
Generation of Brainbow Transgenes for
Neural Circuit Analysis”. This was one of
five grants including the word “Brainbow”
from 2009.
2011 - Eleven papers published based on
Brainbow technology.

41.
A portfolio company of
Brainbow Timeline of Key Events
Papers Funded Projects
Nov. 2007 - Original technical Brainbow
paper published by Livet et al.
2008 – Three grants awarded including the
word “Brainbow”. Two from NIMH and
NINDS to the original Brainbow group at
Harvard, and a third from The Royal Society
to work at UCL in UKNov. 2009 - First primary research paper
published using Brainbow technology.
2009 – NINDS award grant to the Sanes Lab
for the development of the “Next
Generation of Brainbow Transgenes for
Neural Circuit Analysis”. This was one of
five grants including the word “Brainbow”
from 2009.
June 2013 - Sanes Lab publishes “Improved
tools for the Brainbow toolbox” paper in
Nature Methods – relating to work funded
2011 - Eleven papers published based on
Brainbow technology.

42.
A portfolio company of
“siRNA”
Comparing Trends in Data
Technologies or research areas which are reducing in size can be seen
as a drop in funding before a potential drop in publications – and new
technologies can be seen to rise.

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A portfolio company of
Comparing Trends in Data
Technologies or research areas which are reducing in size can be seen
as a drop in funding before a potential drop in publications – and new
technologies can be seen to rise.
“siRNA”
“CRISPR”

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A portfolio company of
Confirming Expectations, or Making
Discoveries?
Zika Virus Funding
in the last 10 years

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A portfolio company of
Confirming Expectations, or Making
Discoveries?
Zika Virus Funding
in the last 10 years
Of course, with these
examples you need to
know what to look for.
However, using
Natural Language
Processing and
analysis of key term
frequencies, we are
now starting to do
automatic
identification of new
trends.

46.
A portfolio company of
Integrating data sources - moving
towards a more complete picture

47.
Patents & Patent
Applications
Publications
Grants
Data
Clinical Trials
Other databases
Platform Data
Researcher
Activities
Institutional
Structure
Grant
Applications
University Data
Progress
Reports
Grant
Applications
Funder Data
Base Data Enrichment Processes Enriched Data
Funding data as part of the bigger
picture

48.
Reference
Extraction
Categorization
Organization
Extraction
Researcher
Disambiguation
Patents & Patent
Applications
Publications
Grants
Data
Clinical Trials
Other databases
Platform Data
Researcher
Activities
Institutional
Structure
Grant
Applications
University Data
Progress
Reports
Grant
Applications
Funder Data
Concept
Extraction
Base Data Enrichment Processes Enriched Data
Funding data as part of the bigger
picture

49.
Reference
Extraction
Categorization
Organization
Extraction
Researcher
Disambiguation
Patents & Patent
Applications
Concepts
Publications
Grants
Data
Clinical Trials
Other databases
Platform Data
Researcher
Activities
Institutional
Structure
Grant
Applications
University Data
Progress
Reports
Grant
Applications
Funder Data
Researchers
Organizations
Classifications
References Metrics
Concept
Extraction
Base Data Enrichment Processes Enriched Data
Funding data as part of the bigger
picture

50.
A portfolio company of
The Complete Picture
Funded Research
Project
Research
Undertaken
Patents and
Publications
Citations,
awareness in
the field
New
applications
for funding
Funding is of course
only one piece of the
puzzle – but an
important piece!
Funded Research
Projects are the last
major piece of the
research process
puzzle, but when
used effectively can
be hugely
informative about
the direction of
things to come.

51.
Thank you
tom@uberresearch.com
www.uberresearch.com