Guides: Researching and Locating Employment in Chemistry: Determining the Range of Research of an Individual or Academic Institution

Range of Research for an Individual

There are several methods to determining the range of research of an individual scientist or of an academic institution

Visit the the scientist's or university department's Web page. Pay attention to awards, fellowships and grants the individual has received. Look for journals in which the scientist has published to understand how his or her research is received by the community.

Perform an author search in Web of Science
This will retrieve any journal articles written by the scientist.
If you want to know the impact this work has had upon the scientific community, sort your hits by number of Times Cited.
Perform an author search in SciFinder
This will retrieve most of the work published by the scientist including; journal articles, patents, book chapters, reports, conference papers, review articles, books that he/she has edited, dissertation, and the abstracts of any papers or posters presented at an ACS National Meeting.
SciFinder
To search for patents filed by the scientist
Search for the author on SciFinder Scholar. Refine by document type "patent."
Derwent Innovations Index
Perform an inventor name search on the Derwent Innovations Index, this is a more inclusive world wide list
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Go to the United States Patent and Trademark Office search page and perform a Quick Search by Inventor Name.
European Patent Office
Go to the European Patent Office search page and perform a Quick Search for Persons or Organizations

It is more difficult to research an academic institution than it is to research an individual, consider using the following methods

ACS Directory of Graduate Research
Look the department up in the ACS Directory of Graduate Research. This directory is organized alphabetically by institution name. Comparing the departments' composition over time can indicate ways in which the various institutions' research priorities have changed.
Google
Perform a Google search through the .edu domain for the University's chemistry department home page.
SciFinder
Perform a SciFinder search by Company/Organization. If the institution in which you are interested is large or prolific, you may need to refine by Publication Year to include only the past five to ten years.

To get a quick idea of the areas in which the institution researches, you can Analyze your results by CA Index Title. This will filter your results into categories of chemistry and indicate in which areas the institution published the most.
Web of Science
Search the Web of Science by address. The best way to do this is to type the institution's zip code in the address field. However, they do have a list of abbreviations that you can use if you want to search by institution name