From the people and topics to the conferences and publications you follow, we want to make it easy for to keep up-to-date with everything related to your field. So to ensure that you never miss out on any updates from your network, we’ve been working hard to optimise the way our live feed functions. Needless to say, we’re very excited about the results...



Here are just a couple of the improvements you can expect:

• Continuous scrolling: gone are the days of the ‘Next’ button. To load more updates from your network, just keep scrolling.
• ‘Show recent activity’: the refresh button is over - we’ll let you know when new contributions have been posted.
• Faster: we’ve updated our servers, so everything in your feed will now load much faster. 
• Display past activity: whether past or present your feed will now immediately be populated with activity. 
• Improved clustering: we’re still working on this one, but you should notice that your network activity is now clustered more efficiently.
• Better notifications: your drop-down notifications are now much more specific so you should easily be able to tell what exactly your contacts are commenting on and where. 

And the best part is that this is just the beginning: you can expect lots more updates and improvements from us in the coming weeks - so please keep sending us your feedback.

Of course we’re still working on ironing out all kinds of kinks and glitches - if you spot something that you think shouldn’t be there, please do drop us a line.

We bring you another topics update - you can now attach publications, links, images or files to your comments.

Just write your reply and add the appropriate media to support your comment.

Enjoy! And please keep your feedback coming, we take your comments and suggestions seriously. 

You can now browse by discipline to find the topics that interest you - just click on ‘Browse topics by discipline’ on your topics overview page.

If you’re looking for something more specific, you can also filter by sub-discipline.

Click on any topic to see its top, latest, new and total discussions, as well as its number of followers. 

Please keep sending us your comments and suggestions - we very much appreciate your feedback. 

Bastian Hofmann, one of ResearchGate’s very own software engineers, will be sharing his technical know-how at two upcoming developer conferences:

PHP Conference 2011 - at Rheingoldhalle - Mainz on the 10th and 11th of October. 

Web Dev Con - at the Intercontinental - Hamburg on the 17th and 18th of October. 

As an advocate of cross-platform web development, Bastian is committed to raising awareness of OpenSocial. In addition to his work at ResearchGate, Bastian is a committer and PMC member at the Apache Shindig Poject and a participant in the OpenSocial Foundation. 

A frequent speaker at conferences throughout the world, Bastian recently presented at the world-renowned open source convention OsCon in Portland, Oregon, where he covered advanced techniques for modern web applications using JavaScript. Bastian’s upcoming presentation will focus on OpenSocial, JavaScript mashups, Oauth, OpenID and other online identity management solutions.

We’ve made it a whole lot easier to contribute to topics.

You can now post directly to any topic you’re following from your topics overview page. So the next time you want to ask a question or share something, just choose which topic you want to contribute to from the drop-down menu.

We base our updates on your feedback, so please keep sending us your comments and suggestions.

As part of our effort to continue improving Topics, we’ve now made it possible for you to follow specific discussions.

As well as having the option to follow an entire topic, you can now follow individual discussions. Just click on ‘Follow this discussion’ within any post. You’ll then find an overview of the posts you’re following on the topics page under the ‘Your discussions’ filter. Thanks for all the feedback so far, please continue to send us your suggestions.

We’ve made some changes to Topics based on your feedback.

You can now search through a topic to find the discussions you’re looking for. Just enter your keywords into the search bar to the right of the topic page - it’s that simple.

Please keep your suggestions coming, we love hearing from you.

“For colorimetric detection in WB, is it best to use AP or HRP conjugated?”
“Does anyone know a good way of isolating membrane proteins in their native form?” 
“Which is the best method for pattern matching: Back Propagation, Genetic Algorithm or Cluster Algorithm?”

Since the launch of ResearchGate, you’ve been using ‘Groups’ to get answers to a lot of complicated questions. Knowing how valuable this resource has become, we decided that it was time to build on it. The result is ‘Topics’ - a more community-driven way to discuss your work - and we think you’re going to like it.

How does Topics work?

1) Follow topics that match your research interests
And see useful articles, publications, links and other content contributed by your peers.

2) Ask a question
To discuss your work with those in the know.

3) Share something
And let other researchers in on what’s informing your work.

4) Rate posts according to quality
To make sure that the most helpful contributions are seen first.

Some extra information:

• If you’re a member of a public group, we’ll make sure you’re following the corresponding topic. But don’t stop there, you can follow as many as you want.
• Private and Secure Groups will become ‘Workgroups’, so you’ll be able to continue working with your colleagues in an exclusive environment, just as before.
• You can use the main search bar to find topics and discussions, but don’t hesitate to ‘Create a Topic’ if you think there’s anything missing.
• If you are the administrator of a group, you’ll be given the role of curator - so as well helping to keep Topics organised, you’ll have more of a say when it comes to rating posts and comments.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be working on ironing out all kinds of kinks - and we’d really appreciate your help. We base our updates on your feedback, so please let us know if you have any suggestions or comments.

As always, we’ve been hard at work on some site updates. We think there’s a few you might be interested in:

It’s now easier than ever before to log in to ResearchGate with your Facebook account: one click is all it takes. ResearchGate will even connect you with those of your Facebook friends who are already part of the ResearchGate community.

We want you to get the most out of ResearchGate; we’ve added a new contact suggestion tool to make connecting and collaborating with friends, colleagues and related researchers even more straightforward. Here’s how to get there: Home Feed » Under ‘Related Researchers’ on the right-hand side » Click ‘Show more’ From there you’ll be able to browse suggestions based on your institution, researchers you might know, people with similar research to you and people working in your field. 

As always, if you have any ideas or feedback let us know!

Add us on Facebook 

Follow us on Twitter

Or send us a message via our contact form.

One million members, one million researchers, one million brains.

A pretty smart guy once said: ‘it is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others’. - Michel de Montaigne

We think these are wise words indeed.

Today marks a milestone in the history of ResearchGate: over one million users are now networking, collaborating and sharing knowledge through our platform.

To connect one million people is to connect the potential of one million brains. One lone brain is already quite impressive; as proof we decided to put together a few facts on what it can do and what makes it tick:

• Our brains experience on average 70,000 thoughts each day.  Imagine that.

• A brain generates around 20 watts of power daily. That’s about enough to power a light bulb. Or a lot of ideas.

• 750 - 1,000 ml of blood flow through the brain every minute. You could fill 3 soda cans with all that. But it probably wouldn’t be as nice as a cold cola.

• There are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the brain. About enough to circle the earth three times. Could get a bit messy though.

• 100 billion neurons go into making our brain what it is. Roughly the same amount as there are stars in our galaxy. That’s pretty mind-blowing.

If this is just one brain, imagine what one million could do together.

1,000,000 is a big number.  And we’re just getting started.

Network Updates

As part of our continued commitment to an improved user experience, we’re always on the lookout for those little changes that can make a big difference: here are some of the most recent updates.

We’ve cleaned up the visual design of our Research Blog and your personal blog. The Research Blog is always on the lookout for quality posts from the ResearchGate community, so why not submit something today?

We’ve done some behind-the-scenes work to make it faster and easier to fulfill your full text requests.

Posting a job to Research Jobs just got easier.  Make your listing and start recruiting from over 900,000 researchers from around the world today!

Getting your colleagues to join ResearchGate is now much more straightforward: we’ve streamlined the invitation function to make the process quicker. If you have any feedback or ideas let us know!

Add us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Or send us a message via our contact form.

Profiles represent people: this is why the new ResearchGate profile was designed with you in mind. 

Start with yourself:

Your profile is where it all begins: add a photo and then let people know where you work, what your research interests are and how they can get in touch with you.  Add a few more details about your educational background, skills, grants and conferences to round out your online research resume.

As a user of the ResearchGate network you'll have noticed that we've had a massive update in the way the platform looks and operates. As it is in science, a greater level of organization results in a greater level of productivity; the new design is intended to make site navigation simpler and more efficient, improving access to the information that is valuable to you and making it easier for you to contribute to the research community.  The website is a combination of the strongest elements of the previous design with an improved functionality.

The tools that you use on a regular basis like the literature search, groups, file sharing, micro-feed, and job search are all still there, but we are continuously working on how we can optimize the way you use them and how their function can improved.  These changes are based on feedback we've received from you as well as ideas we've had that we will enhance the network.  Over the next couple of weeks we'll go through how the new features have been implemented into the network and how you can get the most out of them.

It's an exciting time at ResearchGate, and as always we value your feedback and invite your questions as we progress.

To improve navigation throughout the site, we’ve now enhanced our search engi ne and launched suggestion based search. Just start typing in a name or a scientific keyword and you’ll instantly receive a selection of profiles, groups, events and jobs matching your query. Here’s an example:

Click here to start searching

To increase the ability to search for and connect with researchers with related interests and fields, ResearchGATE profiles now feature hyperlinks for all fields on the 'About Me' page. 

This feature allows you to click on a single word or term, such as a specific institution or research area, and see the results of other profiles in the community that match your search term. 

We hope this feature will increase the efficiency and accessibility of making new contacts, or even just to see who is involved in what field or who has a specific skill set.

As always, we welcome any feedback or ideas you have.