As most will be aware, the Idea Catalog contains information covering the full range of technology readiness levels - from research projects right through to technologies in current use. This short guide aims to explain how to best use the system to display and access current information specifically related to R&D projects from the nuclear industry. The principles here apply to finding information from other industry sectors; the system is designed for cross-sector, multi-country analysis.
Background
The nuclear industry spends a lot of money, every year, on research and development (R&D). The UK NDA and Site Licence Companies spend around £90M a year for instance [source] and that doesn't include many millions more from other publicly-funded sources such as Innovate UK. France and the United States spend at least as much, perhaps even more depending on what funding sources are included. That's a lot of money, a lot of jobs and a lot of potentially fascinating, useful and relevant work being done.
So with all that expenditure, and with many countries tackling similar challenges, you would imagine there is huge scope for learning from what others are doing; sharing knowledge, building on previous work, reducing duplication and so forth.
This is just one industry; the same points apply to others industries and this is the purpose of the Idea Catalog. We are collating work being carried out from various programmes across multiple industries and multiple countries. Users can then display and access current information, in one place, to add insight and knowledge to their own ideas and problems.
Searching for Information
We carried out a major update in the Summer to give the system a new look and feel. This improved the user experience and will future proof the system for new features that are planned to be added down the line. Since the launch, the first update was to improve the search capability. This is a major improvement and we now have a full-text search capability across all catalogs, posts, files and videos. The searching is sophisticated with synonyms, fuzzy search, aggregating with meaning-driven capability (semantic search). It is designed to "learn" over time as more people search for more things.
To try it out simply search for something in the search box at the top: e.g. "Mercury research in nuclear". The system will display records, from all catalogs, related to those words with the most relevant entries at the top.
Narrowing the Information
An alternative way to find things that are relevant is to use the filters available in each catalog*. Each catalog has a number of filters - some are generic to all catalogs and some are specific to a catalog. This is because the way you want to find something is different if you are looking for something to do with characterisation compared to, say, robotics.
To try it out, go to any catalog and filter first on Maturity (e.g. TRL1-3 research and TRL 4-6), then Industry Relevance (say, Nuclear) and the system will display a bunch of research projects relevant to the filters chosen. Click one to find out more. Tags (shown in blue) can then used used to display those from specific programmes or items of relevance that allows you to to continue the exploration (for instance Innovate UK, Game Changers Innovation Programme, DISTINCTIVE, etc).
The same principle applies to filtering on different industries with different maturity levels in different catalogs. It's a very powerful tool that will undoubtedly generate some new and informative information. So, just log in and have a wander round and, I think, you'll be amazed just how much is going on.
Next Steps
1. Clearly, the system does not have absolutely everything (at the moment) so if you want us to add some R&D projects or whole programmes please let us know.
2. In the first quarter of 2021, we will be rolling out the next major update to the system that will allow users to add their own content. This will enrich the knowledge management aspect of the system and we will be sending out more information on this as we come closer to release.
In the meantime, if you haven't yet registered please do so. And if your are already registered but your organisation hasn't yet subscribed for Premium content please lobby your decision makers - it isn't very expensive and there is a lot of valuable content available that makes the return-on-investment decision very straightforward.
www.ideacatalog.net
* Please note that you need to have a Premium Subscription to use the more sophisticated filtering capabilities, as well as the ability to view posts in the Insights tab and download associated files and videos.