Today the Ohio Department of Higher Education announced the launch of a new online platform to showcase STEM faculty from across Ohio, drive innovation and increase collaboration opportunities. The Ohio Innovation Exchange (OIEx) will advance ties between industry and academic institutions and assist technology commercialization across and beyond the state of Ohio. The OIEx is an initiative of Ohio Department of Higher Education and was built through a collaboration between Digital Science and the Ohio Technology Consortium (OH-TECH). The platform features research from with six university partners: Case Western Reserve University, Ohio University, The Ohio State University, Cleveland State University, the University of Akron, and the University of Cincinnati, who were all involved throughout the development process.
OIEx provides free access to more than 8250 faculty members and 900 resources from the six participating universities all via a single searchable online platform. The portal will enable businesses to explore the research expertise of Ohio institutions and will facilitate industry partnerships in an information-driven way. Industry partners will be able to tap into the next generation of workforce and technology licensing opportunities, seed new R&D partnership, and strengthen the supply chain and business development. The scope of OIEx will expand further as other institutions and industry partners join.
“It is critical to our state’s economy that we utilise every aspect of our knowledge and innovation talent across the public and private sectors” said ODHE Chancellor John Carey. “We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve created with OIEx − better connecting the experts and resources at our state research universities to the industries that can utilise them to push their breakthrough ideas to fruition.”
Symplectic has worked closely with the OH-TECH team and our Digital Science colleagues to develop the platform powering the OIEx and to help OH-TECH consolidate and curate data from six universities. It has been a truly collaborative project and we are excited to see it launch.
Our leading research information management system Elements is the data collection and curation solution behind the OIEx. It enables the team managing OIEx to capture, enrich and link data about Ohio’s research activities and surface it in the portal. The front end of the OIEx portal is powered by Dimensions, which as well as surfacing the data, further enriches it to maximise discoverability using automated data analysis and labelling tools. Together Elements and Dimensions ensures that visitors to the OIEX are presented with relevant results and rich, interlinked data.
Daniel Hook, CEO of Digital Science, adds, “Discovery is at the heart of translating research from the university to impact our society, economy, technology and health. Connecting experts and practitioners is critical to extend the reach of research. The State of Ohio has shown true vision and leadership in backing this collaborative project to make research in Ohio more discoverable and more open. We are delighted to have been able to support and to help realize this vision.”