What are Research Spotlights?
Spotlights is an experimental feature that helps you get a boost of visibility for your research and engage with your audience. You can think of Spotlights as a post about a piece of research that appears in other researchers' home feeds.
Boost your visibility
By letting you showcase a piece of research to people who are not following you yet, Spotlights help you reach a wider audience of readers. When you create a Spotlight, you add details and keywords to present your research the way you want to. We then use a special audience algorithm to show it to relevant researchers in your field. Spotlights are also shown to your followers, which means people you know can also discover and engage with the research you showcase.
You can create a Spotlight from your home feed, profile, and stats section.
Engage with your audience with comments
By adding details and keywords about your research, you can start a conversation with others about your work. Other researchers can comment on your Spotlight to ask questions, share ideas, and show you their support. This helps you engage with people who are interested in your research and working on similar topics or challenges. You can also comment on other researchers' Spotlights to engage with them about their own work.
Discover relevant research
Spotlights are also a great way to discover new and relevant research in your home feed. As other researchers in your field showcase their research, we'll show you Spotlights we think are relevant to you and your research. You'll also see when people you follow create Spotlights, and when they add comments to Spotlights. And because Spotlights include additional details and keywords from the authors, it's easy to understand their relevance for your work.
Research Spotlights are a beta feature that we're still testing. Any ResearchGate members with a publication less than 2 years old can post a Spotlight, and all researchers can read and comment on Spotlights.
How can I use Spotlights to get more people to read my work?
Adding a Research Spotlight is simple: choose a research item to showcase, and then add details and keywords to help others understand the relevance of your work. We'll show it to relevant researchers you aren't connected to in their home feeds for 30 days.
We'll also show your Spotlight to your followers. And when a researcher comments on your Spotlight, their followers will also see your Spotlight in their feeds, which means comments can also help you grow the size of your audience even further.
You can create a Spotlight from your home feed, profile, and stats section.
As soon as people start interacting with your Spotlight, we start calculating the number of views it receives, as well as all the new reads your showcased research item receives from ResearchGate members. You can track your new reads from the stats section of your profile.
How can I use Spotlights to stay up to date on recent research?
Spotlights from people you're not connected to appear in a dedicated box in your home feed. You can use the arrows to scroll through a series of Spotlights matched to your interests.
And because Spotlights are presented with keywords and details by the actual authors, it's easy to understand their relevance for you and your work, which can save you time and energy.
What kind of research can I showcase in a Spotlight?
Spotlights can be created for three kinds of research items: articles, books, and preprints which you’ve authored that are less than 2 years old. Any article, book, or preprint you want to showcase needs to be already on your profile. If it isn't, simply add it to your profile first, and then you can include it in a Spotlight.
How do Spotlights help me engage with other researchers?
When you create a Spotlight, you can add details to start a conversation about your work. Maybe you'd like to point to a certain contribution you made or result you discovered. Or maybe you'd like to ask others a question related to your work.
Any ResearchGate member who sees your Spotlight can add a comment, and you can add a comment to reply. Spotlight comments are a great way to ask people questions, share an idea, and show your support to fellow researchers. They also make it easy to engage with other researchers who are working on related topics or similar challenges.
Who can see my Spotlights?
We use a new matching algorithm to show Spotlights to relevant ResearchGate members in your field who you're not currently connected to (for example, people who are not your co-authors or who don't already follow you). This helps you reach a larger audience of researchers who we believe will find your work relevant.
We also show Spotlights to people who follow you. And when a researcher comments on your Spotlight, their followers will also see your Spotlight in their home feeds.
How long do Spotlights last, and how often can I create one?
Research Spotlights are shown to relevant researchers in your field — who are not following you yet — for 30 days. You can create one Spotlight at a time every 30 days, and you can't showcase the same research item more than once.
If you delete your Spotlight before its 30 days are over, you can create a new Spotlight, as long as it showcases a different piece of research.
How can I see my own Spotlight once I've created one?
You can view your current Spotlight on your profile. You can see the new reads your work is getting in the stats section of your profile.
How can I edit or delete a Spotlight that I created?
You can edit the keywords and details of your current Spotlight on your profile. You can also delete your current Spotlight on your profile.
Why can't I create a Spotlight for my research item?
If you’re unable to create a Spotlight for a particular item, it may be due to one of the following:
- The research item is a conference paper, data file, or any type of research item other than an article, book, or preprint
- You are not an author of the article, book, or preprint
- You have not yet added the item to your ResearchGate profile
- The article, book, or preprint is more than 2 years old.
