How to Use the Expert Finder

With the Expert Finder you can search for researchers by name and identify researchers affiliated with a specific organization or those focused on particular research areas.  

To start searching for researchers, select Discover from the Navigation Menu, and select Expert Finder from the menu.

Search for Researchers

There are three ways to search for researchers. Select the relevant tab: 

• Researcher Name/ ID - Start typing a researcher name, Researcher Web of Science ID, or ORCiD to see suggested matches. You can enter a full or partial name (including an initial) in any order, first name followed by last name, or last name followed by first name. You can also search using a full or partial Researcher ID or ORCiD. The matches will display the name, organizational affiliation (if available) and the Researcher ID.

       You can select a suggestion from the list and see more details about the selected researcher, or hit Enter or          select the magnifying glass icon to execute the search and see the full list of search results.  

• Organization Name - You can search for an organization and see the researchers whose primary affiliation is this organization. Start typing an organization name to see suggested matches. Once you select an organization from the list, you will move to the search results page. If you select an organization with no affiliated researchers the search results page will be empty and you will be asked to change your selected organization.   

• Research Topics - You can select Research Topics to find experts who are active in these areas. Start typing a topic to see suggested matches. There are three Research Topics levels (see more information here). Matches from all three levels are displayed. If you select macro level (highest) or meso level (middle) topic, all the micro level (lowest) topics under them are displayed and you can further refine the list. For example in the first result shown below, Clinical & Life Sciences is a macro level topic, Cell Biology is a meso level topic and Ciliate Biology is a micro level topic.  

This is how suggestions appear when typing a topic: 

This is how the topics appear if you select macro, meso or multiple micro level topics: 

If there are many topics, a View more button will appear, and a number indicating how many additional topics are added to the search. Hit Search to execute the search. The results will be sorted in a descending order based on our assessment of relevance to the selected topics.  

You can see a full list of the available research topics in the Browse Research Topics section. You can see all the topics listed in a hierarchical list which can be searched and explored. This can assist you in finding the most relevant topics for your search from the entire keyword set. You may select any level in the hierarchy. Notice that if you select a meso level, all the micro level topics will be added. You can then further refine your search term by adding and removing topics from the same level or from other topics in the list. You can execute the search from this section using your selected terms. 

Expert Finder Search Results Page

The search results page has three main sections: 

• Search bar - Your selected search term or topics. You can select a new search term, refine the topic list or change the search scope by changing the selection in the Search by drop down menu.
• Results Count and Filters - The number of researchers retrieved. You can refine the search results using the available filters:
  • Organization - Select one or more organizations to see researchers from those organizations. This filter is available when searching by Researcher Name and Research Topics.
  • Department - If you filtered by organizations you can select departments within those organizations to see researchers from those departments. The department list in this filter depends on the result set, therefore not all known departments will appear, and the list will change based on your search.
  • Country - Select one or more countries to see researchers from those countries.
  • Activity Years - You can select a year range to see researchers who published publications and preprints within this range. If you only enter a start year, the current year will be used as the end year. If you only enter an end year, 1980 will be used as the start year. Earlier data is not available
  • Research Topics - You can select Research Topics to see researchers who are active in these areas. This filter is available when searching by Researcher Name and Organization Name. The micro topics available in the set are now clustered under their respective parent topics (meso level). 
  • Grants* - You can filter the researcher list by setting a minimum number of grants received, making it easier to identify researchers with more extensive grant histories.
  • Highly Cited Researchers - Use the “Highly Cited Researcher” filter to display in the list only researchers who received the Highly Cited Researcher recognition.
• Results - In the results section you will see the list of researchers that match the search and filter criteria. Each researcher entry in the list includes a name, Highly Cited Researcher indicator (if available), organization (if available), geographical location, Researcher Web of Science ID and ORCiD (if available), top three Research Topics, years of activity (based on publications and preprints), publication count, Times Cited count, preprints count, grants count and total amount of grants*.
  • Sort - You can change the sort order of the results. Available sort options are:
    • Relevance - This is the default sort order, in descending order of relevance. When searching by Researcher Name/ID or Organization Name, it is based on proximity to your search, with greater weight given to name matches over partial ID matches. When searching by Research Topics, it is based on the strength of the topic connection to the researcher.
    • Name A-Z  / Name Z-A - Sort the list alphabetically in ascending or descending order.
    • Publications - Sort by publication count in a descending order.
    • Total Times Cited - Sort by Times Cited count in a descending order (see more here).  
    • Grants* - Sort by total number of grants in descending order. 
    • Grants ($)* - Sort by the total amount of grants in descending order. 

Select any researcher to see their Researcher Card which provides a detailed view of the researcher.  

For more information about additional search options in the application, see Search Across Web of Science Research Intelligence. 

(*) The grant information is based on data from the funders listed here.