The emergence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) late last year led to an unprecedented galvanization of the global scientific community toward quickly learning about the disease, sharing knowledge immediately, and coordinating evidence-based efforts to manage the crisis.
Nearly a year on, hundreds of thousands of articles on various research topics related to COVID-19 have been published, either after peer review or as preprints. In addition, the volume of research literature on COVID-19 continues to grow significantly, which is no ordinary feat considering that SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 were unknown a year ago. However, this staggering growth in COVID-19-related literature, while a great boon for researchers, also poses a unique challenge: that of finding relevant information quickly.
Searching for literature under time pressure
In normal times, researchers in the disciplines of health or life sciences have been reported to spend between 12 and 15 hours per week on scholarly readings, with the average time spent on reading one article being 30 minutes. And this does not even include the time spent on finding what to read.
During a global public health emergency like the one caused by COVID-19, researchers working on this disease are probably accommodating much more searching and reading into their schedules than they did before. The need for smart information-retrieval tools in such situations is, therefore, highly compelling.
Meeting the need for smart discovery of COVID-19 literature
Anticipating these challenges, Cactus Communications launched the R Concept platform, which brings together recent and relevant research on COVID-19. The objective of developing this global repository of information was to ensure that COVID-19 researchers had everything they needed in one place, saving hours of time they would otherwise spend searching through multiple sources of literature related to the topic.
This platform offers researchers a regularly updated repository of literature related to COVID-19 and uses search features powered by state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technology. It has a current corpus covering over 600,000 articles, a list of over 300 available COVID-19 data sets, and over 2,800 registered clinical trials related to COVID-19 from around the world, with accompanying details and summaries of the trial objectives and methodology.
Legacy of supporting researchers through challenging times
As a technology company accelerating scientific advancement through effective communication for 18+ years, CACTUS is highly aware of researcher pain points even during normal times. Understandably, the pressure experienced by those at the front lines of COVID-19 research must be tremendous. They are processing a vast amount of information quickly and carefully as they carry out their research responsibilities, while, in some cases, managing risks to their personal well-being. The R Concept platform was one the several initiatives implemented by CACTUS to support researchers through the challenges that emerged because of the pandemic, the others including pro bono translation, editing, and research promotion services for researchers involved in COVID-19–related work.
For its response to the COVID-19 crisis and the support it provided to its customers and community, CACTUS won a bronze award in the category “Most Valuable Corporate Response” at the 17th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business in October 2020.
We strongly believe in empowering researchers with tools, resources, and services that help them do their work more effectively, especially during tough times like these, and a platform like R Concept can considerably help address some of the top challenges they face as they work toward developing strategies to control the pandemic.
