Research Collaborator Finder

Most co-author lists stop at the same handful of names. Upload your paper and get researchers whose published work sits close to yours, each with a short reason you can judge for yourself.

Find researchers working close to your topic

Upload a paper or a project write-up. We read what it is about, then shortlist researchers whose published work sits close to it, with a short reason for each. PDF or Word.

Upload your manuscript for an AI journal compliance check

Supported formats: PDF Word (DOCX)

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Why researchers look outside their own circle

A research collaborator finder suggests researchers whose published work overlaps with your own, so you can widen the circle you write papers with. Most people do not go looking until something forces them to. A call requires a partner in a second country, a reviewer says the analysis needs a method nobody in the group has run, a letter of support is due in three weeks. At that point the usual route, which is to ask the people you already work with, has already been used up.

The circle is narrower than it feels. Co-authorship networks are strongly clustered: the people you publish with tend to publish with each other, and the same names come back paper after paper. That is comfortable and it is fast, but it also means the reviewers who eventually read your work often sit outside the network entirely. Widening it starts with reading, specifically with reading who has published on the exact problem you are stuck on in the last three or four years, rather than who is famous in the field.

What makes a good collaborator match

Works on your actual problem

Not the broad field, the specific question. Someone who has published on the same mechanism, dataset or population will understand the proposal in one reading.

Brings something you do not have

A method, an instrument, a cohort, access to a site. Two groups with identical skills produce a longer author list, not a better paper.

Not already a co-author

Adding someone from your existing circle rarely changes what the group can do. The value of a new collaborator is the part of the map they cover and you do not.

Currently active

Recent output matters more than a long back catalogue. A group that published this year has a running project, students and, usually, funding.

An institution that can sign

Consortium calls impose eligibility rules on countries, institution types and roles. A perfect scientific match at an ineligible institution costs you the deadline.

A realistic first ask

Start with a call about one specific idea. Proposing a full joint grant to someone who has never met you asks them to spend weeks on a stranger.

How the collaborator shortlist is built

The shortlist is built from your own document rather than from a topic you type, so every name arrives with the overlap that put it there. What it cannot tell you is whether that person wants to work with you, which is the part you have to find out yourself.

  1. Upload your PDF or Word file

    A paper, a draft or a project write-up. No account and no payment. A free usage limit is tied to your email address.

  2. We extract the topic and methods

    The match runs on what the document claims and how it was done, not on a keyword you typed.

  3. We match against OpenAlex

    Candidates come from OpenAlex, an open catalogue of more than 300 million scholarly works. Only public bibliographic records are used.

  4. You get a shortlist with reasoning

    Each name carries its affiliation and a short note on the overlap with your work, so you can decide who is worth reading further.

  5. You do the reading and the asking

    Check recent papers and the group page before you write, and check eligibility if a funder is involved. We never contact anyone, and being on the list says nothing about whether someone is free or interested.

Collaborator finder questions

Through people they already know: former supervisors, lab mates, someone met at a conference, a co-author of a co-author. That works until a call asks for a partner in another country or another discipline, at which point the usual circle runs out. The alternatives are reading the literature systematically, asking your network for a referral, and looking at who has recently published on the exact problem you are stuck on.