The enhanced fact file
Not a scorecard. A dossier that tells a university leader exactly where the strengths, the risks and the fundable opportunities are, every figure sourced from the open research record.
The one-screen strategic read
The first thing a leader needs is not more data, it is a verdict. Three strengths to lead with, three challenges to manage, three opportunities to act on, each drawn straight from the network below.
Scholarly weight
Collaboration only counts if the work lands. This is the citation weight of everything produced with partners, the substance under the network.
Visualisation 1
Seven pillars, each shown as a global percentile. The dashed ring marks the top-decile benchmark; anything inside it is a genuine, defensible strength.
Vrije Universiteit Brussel is strongest on international (93rd percentile), diversity (90th) and impact (77th). Its brokerage diagnostic shows 148 of 168 partners (88%) are non-redundant, a genuine bridge between communities rather than a wide publisher.
The pillar to watch is Influence (60th percentile), the softest of the six and the clearest place to build.
Source: the open global research record, co-authored works 2021–2025, fractional countingThe anatomy of your standing
Six pillars, each weighted, combine into one standing index. Nothing is hidden: this is the entire calculation, in a single bar.
Brokerage is reported alongside as a diagnostic, not folded into the score, so a university cannot inflate its standing simply by publishing widely. It measures whether you connect communities that would otherwise stay apart.
Visualisation 2
Each subject placed on a log scale of world rank (1 to 1,195). The further left, the more globally central. Gold marks a top-50 standout, blue a solid position.
Vrije Universiteit Brussel's strongest connected fields are Veterinary #92, Earth & Planetary Sciences #115, Chemical Engineering #147. The portfolio leans on social sciences; Life Sciences, at world #738 in the deep-dive below, is the clear at-risk area, exactly the gap this chart surfaces.
Source: subject-level indices, 26 fields, minimum 50-university gateDiscipline deep-dive
The same network split into its four broad domains, each with its world rank for connected research and the five partners it leans on most. This is the view a dean or pro-vice-chancellor acts on.
Visualisation 3
Every anchor partner plotted by collaboration volume against the citation impact of the joint work. The prize quadrant is top-right: high volume and high impact. The bottom-right is the trap: a lot of output, little impact.
Harvard University returns the highest impact of the set (FWCI 8.2): a consortium waiting to happen. Université Libre de Bruxelles, by contrast, is a sizeable partner returning FWCI 3.1: worth asking what that volume is buying.
| Partner | Joint works | FWCI | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇧🇪 Ghent University | 1,820 | 3.8 | Standard |
| 🇧🇪 Université Libre de Bruxelles | 1,581 | 3.1 | Low yield |
| 🇧🇪 KU Leuven | 1,528 | 3.4 | Standard |
| 🇧🇪 University of Antwerp | 1,085 | 2.6 | Low yield |
| 🇧🇪 UCLouvain | 416 | 4.1 | Standard |
| 🇳🇱 Radboud University Nijmegen | 367 | 5.6 | Standard |
| 🇳🇱 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | 354 | 6.4 | Standard |
| 🇳🇱 Utrecht University | 348 | 5.1 | Standard |
| 🇺🇸 Harvard University | 315 | 8.2 | High yield |
| 🇧🇪 University of Liège | 282 | 3.5 | Standard |
Visualisation 4
The network spans 80 countries and 1,068 universities, but the top two carry about 47% of the volume. That concentration is where the resilience question lives, and the Africa white-space (0 of the region's 2 leading collaborators) is the clearest gap to close.
Source: co-authorship by partner-institution country, 2021–2025Visualisation 5
€236M across 424 funded projects from the European Commission, split €131M Horizon Europe and €105M Horizon 2020, every project traceable to the funder's own record (CORDIS). The fact file adds the ERC and the major national funders, each named and linked, never a single black-box platform.
Funding is shown next to the network because the two move together: the fundable opportunities below are chosen where a real programme already exists to pay for the bridge.
Source: funders' own award systems + CORDIS, awards active 2021–2025 · verifiedVisualisation 6
Not a generic wish-list. Globally central universities you are not yet deeply partnered with, each with the reason it matters and the specific programme that would fund the collaboration.
University of Hong Kong is top-94 globally in Social Sciences. You have no joint publications yet, and it is a natural, fundable bridge in your strongest field.
Funding route: Horizon Europe (associated-country participation) or bilateral Royal Society / DFG / ANR schemes
National University of Singapore is top-115 globally in Social Sciences. You have no joint publications yet, and it is a natural, fundable bridge in your strongest field.
Funding route: Horizon Europe (associated-country participation) or bilateral Royal Society / DFG / ANR schemes
Chinese University of Hong Kong is top-130 globally in Social Sciences. You have no joint publications yet, and it is a natural, fundable bridge in your strongest field.
Funding route: Horizon Europe (associated-country participation) or bilateral Royal Society / DFG / ANR schemes
University College London is top-13 globally in Social Sciences. You have no joint publications yet, and it is a natural, fundable bridge in your strongest field.
Funding route: Horizon Europe (associated-country participation) or bilateral Royal Society / DFG / ANR schemes
The research base
A partnership does not plug into a name, it plugs into a base: the affiliated hospitals, presses, institutes and archives, and the research themes where the joint work concentrates.
Context
The named peer group your fact file compares you to, pillar by pillar and subject by subject.
From insight to action
The dossier ends where a strategy meeting begins: three moves, sequenced, each pointing back to a specific finding above.
Adopt HKU and a Africa hub as formal partnership targets; brief the relevant deans with the joint white-space evidence.
Scope the specific programme for each target, and turn the Harvard University tie into a consortium concept in Social Sciences.
Address the influence gap and the life sciences weakness; set a diversification target for the long tail; and secure an editorial feature in the reputation-survey window.
Your fact file
Everything above is the open view. The full partner fact file goes further: every ranked subject and subfield, the complete partner ledger with yield, your named academics and their signature work, the funder-by-funder route map for each target, and this same dossier on up to ten named peers.
Free to claim and verify your data. No obligation. Your ranking is unaffected by partnership, and always will be.
Exclusive to partners
Every partnership includes the full intelligence on your named competitive set, their strengths, their funders, their white-space, so you can see exactly where you lead and where to close the gap. Two peers with Recognition, five with Partnership, up to ten with Flagship.
Partnership also places your research as editorial features in the Research Network Report, our newsletter to a verified global academic audience, timed to the reputation-survey season. Every send comes with a full performance report: opens, clicks and geography, benchmarked against the edition.
Submit your data and we will build and review your enhanced fact file with you, then show exactly how a partnership turns it into advantage, before the index goes public on 15 September 2026.
Request a partnership conversation →