Introducing Atlas for University Research Offices

A funding call arrives with two weeks to assemble a team. The research office knows several people who might fit. But what about the recent hire in another department, the joint appointment, or the researcher on another campus whose work uses different language for a related problem?

Their expertise may be exactly what the proposal needs. Finding it should not depend on someone remembering a name at the right moment. And when the work calls for an external collaborator, the office needs a clear basis for assessing what that person could bring to the team.

Ascendr introduces Atlas, our first product: a research expertise and grant intelligence platform for university research offices. Atlas connects researchers to the grants, publications, patents, courses, collaborations, and approved institutional records behind their work. It gives research offices a shared view of documented expertise and helps them connect that expertise to the work ahead.

Atlas starts with the problem a request for proposals (RFP) asks the team to address. It identifies the areas of expertise involved and assesses the depth of expertise required, then helps the office find researchers whose documented work supports a potential contribution.

The depth of expertise matters because researchers in the same field can bring different capabilities to a project. One may apply an established method; another may develop new methods. Atlas helps the research office examine those distinctions through documented work, whether a potential contributor is within the institution or an external collaborator.

From a funding call to a team conversation:

Consider a hypothetical proposal for a shared research instrument. The research office needs to identify potential users across departments and bring together a team with complementary expertise. In this example, the relevant areas include structural biology, materials science, and computational imaging.

A staff member pastes the funding call into Atlas. Atlas identifies the expertise needed to address the proposed work and assesses the depth required in each area. In this example, the office might need to distinguish experience using an imaging method from experience developing it or leading a research program that depends on it.

Atlas then suggests potential principal investigators, co-investigators, and collaborators, linking each recommendation to the records supporting the match. The office can examine how a person's experience relates to the contribution the project needs.

A publication may show experience with a relevant method. A grant may document a researcher's role in a related project. The office can review those records, their dates, and the factors behind the estimated fit before deciding whom to approach.

Where configured, Atlas also checks requirements such as roles, affiliations, dates, conflicts, and expertise coverage. These checks help the office identify gaps and questions that need attention as it develops the team.

The research office then confirms interest and availability, checks the funder's current requirements, and weighs the proposed team's scientific fit. Researchers bring context the records cannot fully capture, including work in progress and the direction they want to take next.

The result is a more informed starting point for a team conversation: a view of the expertise the work requires, possible contributors, and the evidence behind their inclusion.

This is an illustrative workflow, not a customer case study or an announcement of an open funding opportunity.

Beyond grant teams:

Research offices need to understand expertise both within their institution and across the partnerships that extend its capabilities. Atlas supports several related decisions.

1. Partnership requests: A company looking for help with battery recycling describes a technical problem that may cross several departments. Atlas helps identify researchers whose work supports an introduction and prepare a capability brief explaining the connection.
2. Depth of expertise of external collaborators: Many projects depend on expertise outside the institution. Atlas helps research offices assess an external collaborator's areas and depth of expertise through available grants, publications, patents, and other relevant records. The office can examine the person's role in related work, its relevance to the proposed collaboration, and how recent or sustained that work has been. This gives the team an evidence-supported basis for assessing the contribution a collaborator could make, alongside referrals and direct conversations.
3. Program review: Atlas helps map program areas and learning outcomes to documented research and teaching expertise. The office can review coverage, investigate apparent gaps, and prepare supporting material with the source records attached.
4. Continuity and capability planning: When a retirement is approaching or a new research initiative is being considered, Atlas helps the institution examine its documented capabilities. Scenarios can show how a proposed appointment could change expertise coverage, giving colleagues a basis for discussion with the people who understand the context.

In each case, the value comes from connecting a question to relevant people and making the basis for that connection visible.

Evidence and judgment stay visible:

Research offices need to explain the recommendations they make. Atlas is designed to support that responsibility.

Profiles and matches link to source records, including their origin and date. Ambiguous identities are flagged for review. Users can inspect the factors behind expertise scores and relevance estimates rather than treating a ranking as a complete account of a person's capabilities.

That distinction matters. A publication documents work someone has done; its relevance to a new proposal still requires interpretation. Assessments of the depth an RFP requires and the depth a researcher brings are estimates to review with subject experts. Expertise scores and scenario results are also labeled as estimates. Missing evidence can reflect incomplete records and should prompt further inquiry, never a conclusion that someone lacks ability.

People at the institution retain responsibility for selection, hiring, funding, and accreditation decisions. Atlas recommendations should not be the sole basis for those decisions.

Atlas is designed for deployment in the institution's own cloud, with approved sources, access arrangements, retention, and export agreed with the institution. The institution retains ownership of its data.

Bring a question from your institution:

Start with a funding call, a partnership request, or a program question. In a demonstration, we will walk through how Atlas identifies the expertise and depth the work calls for, connects those needs to potential contributors, and shows the evidence your team can use to assess the fit.

Request an Atlas demonstration

Atlas puts Ascendr's mission into practice: advancing trustworthy decision intelligence for the researchers, institutions, and public who rely on it. Helping research offices understand the expertise they have and the expertise a collaboration could bring is a practical place to begin.

Written by the Ascendr Team

Ascendr, PBC is a Delaware public benefit corporation based in Mount Airy, Maryland. We develop decision intelligence for research, intellectual property, and technology strategy. Our public benefit mission also includes advancing education and entrepreneurship in communities worldwide.

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