Researcher, the mobile app for research discovery, registered its millionth user just under 18 months after its launch. The key to its success has been reimagining how academic content should be organised and displayed in order to support researchers in staying on top of the most current research in their chosen field.
The Researcher app shows research findings and graphical abstracts in a clean social media style feed. It combines the most recent publications from 13,000 journals and thanks to machine learning and the latest software development innovations, the app makes staying up-to-date with scholarly information effortless.
The company was founded after three academics discovered that they each faced the same challenge – keeping track of the vast quantity of research papers being published. They recognised that there was great scope to optimise the current process of research and discovery, and with few apps aimed at academics, this seemed the obvious choice.
Today, academics from all over the globe generate more than 12 million content impressions per month making Researcher comparable to some of the most visited and influential sources of information in the world of academia.
This refreshing approach to the problem of staying up-to-date has clearly chimed with Researcher’s users, who range from undergraduates to professors, as well as those who are just inquisitive by nature. Five papers are viewed every second in the app, with users able to access over 2.7 million articles and more being added daily.
Researcher makes it easy to consume papers on the go, making it an ideal tool for the increasingly busy modern-day academic, travelling between conferences and juggling research with other aspects of their life. It has integrated with Unpaywall which allows users to access free legal versions of papers anywhere. Academics can also log in with their university credentials to access the full text of papers on any device.
Co-founder Olly Cooper says: “We’re incredibly excited to have passed a million users. When we started our hope was that we could make it easier for scientists to stay up to date with new research that was relevant to them, and in doing that to help them concentrate on what really matters – moving science forward and making breakthroughs faster. This milestone shows that we are on the right track, and we’re excited to continue to build the user base and to continue to improve scientists’ and academics’ workflows.”
“It’s just like browsing through Instagram or Twitter. I love flicking through attractively laid-out abstracts on the go.” says Dr Hazel Jackson, Science Director, Animal-Free Research UK.
“Researcher has transformed the way my group manage and prioritize their reading,” says Dr Arjun Krishnan, an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University. “It allows us to share the responsibility of staying abreast of the latest papers.”
