Post by SIRIS Academic

🚀 New research paper: A global map of science according to a topic model of EU grants in collaboration with Ismael Rafols Global science maps are helpful in science policy because they provide information (including intuitive insights) on the distribution over topics or disciplines of the activities, investments or performance of scientific organisations, programmes or territories. In a new study featured on Quantitative Science Studies, we present a global map of science built from ~82,000 EU-funded R&I projects spanning FP6, FP7, Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe (2003–2024). Rather than relying on citation networks, we use a semantic approach based on large language models and unsupervised clustering to categorise R&I projects funded by the European Commission according to emerging topics. 🔍 Key idea We shift the focus from scientific publications to scientific funding, revealing a complementary view of the global structure of science. 🌍 What we find The resulting map (60 topics across 7 macro-areas) closely aligns with the disciplinary structures of traditional maps of science based on publications, but with a notable difference: the strong presence of applied, mission-oriented, and sustainability-focused research — especially in engineering, environmental sciences, and innovation-driven fields — that appears to “bridge” (or, reversing the perspective, to “draw from”) different disciplinary domains. This reflects the strategic orientation of EU funding programmes and highlights dimensions of research often underrepresented in publication-based maps. 🧭 Why it matters By mapping funding instead of publications, we can better capture: applied and transdisciplinary research collaboration with industry, public sector, and NGOs policy-driven and societal challenge-oriented science 📊 We also explore how organisations, regions, and funding instruments (e.g. ERC vs EIC) occupy distinct positions in this semantic space, revealing different strategic research profiles. 📌 This work contributes to a growing effort to build global, data-driven maps of science to align scientific production and innovation with strategically-relevant policy priorities. Congratulations to Adrià Plazas Vidal Nicandro Bovenzi Nicolau D. Enric Fuster Martí Ismael Rafols