The UH Division of Research recently hosted Robert Laurie from Clarivate to go over features and enhancements within the Pivot-RP funding database. The session was part of DOR’s Faculty Café series.
Pivot-RP is an online database for researchers that connects them to funding opportunities. Presently, there are over 23,000 active, and constantly updated funding opportunities on Pivot-RP.
“A large chunk of the opportunities you’ll see in Pivot come from the U.S. government, but we also harvest data from professional associations, private foundations, multinational organizations, and commercial endeavors,” Laurie said.
Awarded Grants
The latest major addition to Pivot is the “Awarded Grants” databse. This feature allows researchers to view previous recipients of specific grants and awards. The tool is designed to help users compare their qualifications to other researchers, to identify potential collaborators and better understand what funders are looking for in successful applications.
Other New Features
Users can easily share specific opportunities via the “Share” button in Pivot. Now, a new feature allows for users to share their searches as well. Recipients of shared searches can view the sender's search terms and results and modify those terms for their own purposes.
The new “Dismiss” button allows users to manually remove irrelevant opportunities and keep them from appearing in their future searches. Users can always undo this action, should the opportunity become relevant later.
Getting Set Up in Pivot
The Pivot database houses a wide array of opportunities like conferences, prizes, awards for artistic pursuits, equipment grants, travel grants and more. All of which can be filtered and saved to make it easier for users to search and find what they’re looking for. Laurie suggests that, at a minimum, faculty should complete the following steps to get the most out of Pivot.
Step 1: Set Up Your Profile
In order to get started, go to https//pivot.proquest.com. The only requirement is that users must sign up with their institutional email address. Gmail, Yahoo, and others similar, will not be accepted.
According to Laurie, the most important step, after first logging into Pivot, is to review the “Claim Your Profile” options to see if your information is already in the system. Doing so will allow you to receive weekly funding alerts and to connect with the millions of Pivot researchers worldwide. Every week, newly added opportunities are matched with your profile and sent via an email digest.
Step 2: Create a Saved Search
Another useful feature is the saved search. Once the user is happy with the results from their custom search criteria, they can save the search, give it name and every week Pivot will run that search and send them the results via email.
“By taking the time to do a saved search, or multiple saved searches— you could have one by subject area, one by funder, one by type of award— the results will be more relevant to you than the weekly funding alert,” said Laurie. “Pivot will then work for you and every week bring to you any new opportunities that were added to the database that match the search criteria.”
If anyone has any issues, they can always contact the Pivot-PR support team. There is also a Pivot-PR YouTube channel with videos that provide more details on the topics discussed during the Faculty Café event.