Interview with Shaya Abdolahzadeh

"I am here to support our academic community in measuring and optimizing their research impact and exploring potential collaborations or research trends."

After finishing her PhD and postdoc at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, Shaya Abdolahzadeh said goodbye to the lab, but not to the University of Groningen. Since 2017, she has been Research Impact Specialist at the University of Groningen Library and supports the academic community in demonstrating and enhancing their research impact.

What is your role as Research Impact Specialist?

I am here to support our academic community in measuring and optimizing their research impact and exploring potential collaborations or research trends. I collaborate closely with colleagues from the Central Medical Library and the Office of the University, in particular Jules van Rooij and Ana Ranitović. Together with Ana, I am working on establishing a local expertise network of research analytics experts and lead Research Impact Services. My focus is on academic impact, Ana specializes in societal impact and Jules is our senior research policy advisor.

How can Research Impact Services help?

What are our research strengths and weaknesses? What are our peers at other universities doing? Are we publishing in the right journals? Are we collaborating effectively? Which are the topics with high momentum that have a higher grant success rate? Who else is active and publishing in the similar topic who I could partner with?

These are some of the questions we can answer for individual researchers, research managers, research groups, but also policy, research support and HR officers. When used meaningfully and observed in the right context, the answers can help make better-informed decisions, shed light on the overall reputation of the work of a group or institution, support efforts to obtain funding, collaboration partners or talent and help demonstrate research excellence.

How do you reach out to the UG academic community?

We introduce new research impact tools such as Scival and Altmetric, provide guidelines for a responsible and prudent use of metrics and analytic tools, offer (individual) training on how to use these tools and provide impact analysis upon request. Recently we launched an online learning platform to easily learn how to work with Scival and Altmetric.

We also reach out through the University-wide internal network: Expertise Network Research Analytics (ENRA). This network links UG and UMCG colleagues from different faculties and research units who are interested in research impact. We meet to exchange knowledge and best practices. If you would like to join, let us know! You can find more information about research impact and our tools and services on our website.

For More Information

• Discover how we measure impact ethically
• Visit the Research Impact Services website