Services
Taking your business to the next level, providing intelligence in many areas – from research development, prioritization and strategic planning to university-industry interactions focusing on two major areas: Research Intelligence and Corporate Engagement Intelligence.
Research Intelligence
What is it?
Research intelligence (RI) is the process of collecting, processing and analyzing information about the institution and its operational environment, putting findings into context and proving actionable insights. RI helps institutions look outward and towards the future, supporting sound decision making, shifting from a reactive to a proactive organization in order to increase organizational resilience. RI encompasses Competitive Intelligence, Business Intelligence and Market Intelligence.
Provides an overview of the institution’s research strengths and weaknesses in a specific topic
or function by assessing faculty capacity using the following indicators:-
Scholarly Output
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Intellectual Property
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Awards and Recognitions
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Research Proposals
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Institutional Engagement
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Leadership Roles
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Positions the institution in relation to other institutions and external market in a specific field.
Competency analysis is an extension of Capacity Analysis with the addition of chosen peers or aspirational peers for comparison.-
Scholarly Output
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Intellectual Property
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Awards and Recognitions
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Institutional Engagement
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Leadership Roles
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Aligns general trends of the company’s needs and overall market development to the institution
capacity or competency. In order to build a strategy, the following steps are necessary:-
Company Research
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Translation of Company Needs
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Evaluation of Competitors
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Internal Capacity
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Building a Strategy
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Examines the overall activity of external environment (institutions, federal government,
companies etc.) within a particular field with an eye towards the future. This type of analyses are
trying to anticipate future opportunities and raise awareness of possible developments. Key
steps are:-
Observation of signals: Begin by scanning the external environment to identify relevant trends,
drivers, and signals of change.
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Internal Assessment: Evaluate your organization's current strengths, weaknesses, capabilities,
and resources.
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Decision-Making and Strategy Development: Engage with key stakeholders to discuss the
findings and potential strategies.Development
Example: Scenario Planning: Building Research Resilience in Uncertain Times
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Network analysis is a powerful analytical technique used in various fields to study the
relationships and interactions between entities in a network. Our network analyses are based on
publications, proposals and awards. The structure of the network offers the following insights:-
Connectivity: Determines the degree of connectivity between nodes (entities) in the network.
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Centrality: Identifies the most central nodes in the network using measures like degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and closeness centrality.
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Clustering: Analyzes the presence of clusters or communities within the network. Nodes with
in the same cluster tend to be more closely connected than nodes in different clusters.
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A map of science typically refers to a visual representation or model that illustrates the
interconnectedness and organization of various fields, disciplines, and sub-disciplines within the
realm of scientific knowledge. By building a map of science we can observe:-
Interdisciplinary Connections
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Emerging Fields
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Knowledge Gaps
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Evolution of Science
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Research Trends
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Examines the overall activity of external environment (institutions, federal government,
companies etc.) within a particular field. This type of analysis will help better understand the
institution’s position in terms the research operational environment. We pay particular attention to the following:-
Analysis of research funding by sponsor — federal or otherwise— by program, agency and/or topics: indicates the flow of dollars, trends and focus areas by sponsor, program, agency or topic. Gives indications of leaders and the universities' relative position in regard to sponsored research.
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Proposals and awards analysis: with the understanding of the research sponsors, we can
overlay past and current university activity to gain insight on additional opportunities.
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Facts and Figures
We’re good with numbers
20+
Years of Experience in Academic Research
10+
Years of Experience in Corporate Research Development
15+
Presentations at NORDP, NACRO, UIDP, Competitive Intelligence working Group
10+
Market and Technology Analyses Customized for the Client
About Me
For over a decade, Alba has developed the methods and processes used to provide strategic and competitive intelligence to our internal and external clients. She specializes in bibliometrics, capacity / competency analysis, landscape analysis and corporate engagement strategy. Her interests are now directed towards foresight analysis.
Alba received her PhD from Ohio State in Agronomy, with a major in Soil Physics and a minor in Statistics. She completed her postdoctoral training at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) on Ohio State’s Wooster campus.
Testimonials
What our clients say
I have worked closely with Alba for nearly ten years. Several universities have modeled their competitive intelligence programs on what she created here at Ohio State. Her analyses create actionable intelligence that aid our corporate engagement efforts and provide insights about the university research ecosystem. Her work product is stellar, she is responsive to requests, and provides insights that would be impossible to know without her expertise and skills.
From my many years of experience managing and working with Alba, it is my honor and privilege to recommend her for any role or responsibility. Dr. Clivati McIntyre is essentially the most skilled Strategic and Competitive Intelligence professional with whom I have ever worked or been associated with. Alba's combination of deep analytical and technical proficiency, out-of-the-box creativity, customer focus, and absolute integrity make her unique among her peers. She is very adept at understanding the needs of her customers and partners; and can always be relied upon to competently and concisely deliver the highest quality work products. Beyond Alba's excellent business acumen, she is an absolute pleasure to work with and understands the importance of cultivating and maintaining relationships and trust with all of her colleagues and clients.
Daniel Kramer
It’s not often you come across someone with a mind as sharp as Alba’s. Her ability to critically examine a concept or issue and go beyond the surface level is beyond compare. While some have begun to see the value in adopting tools that support data-informed decision making, Alba incorporates these tools into a strategic approach that seeks to resolve questions the stakeholder may not even know they need to ask. It’s been a true pleasure to collaborate with her the last few years and share ideas in this new field of strategic and competitive intelligence supporting university research. She has been gracious in offering her knowledge in the areas of research competency analysis, bibliometrics, and intelligence methodologies. Alba is truly way ahead of the pack!
Karen Walker
In my 30 years in the field of business development have never seen a more tenacious researcher than Alba. The connections she makes and the ability to build comprehensive profiles is unparalleled. It will be a learning experience for me to continue to work with Alba.
Paul Reeder
Alba’s nationally recognized expertise is an asset to the Ohio State community. Our corporate partners are continually impressed by the comprehensive picture of Ohio State’s research ecosystem we present to them based on her analyses. This increased awareness of faculty expertise results in more industry research collaborations. Her work to support corporate engagement is invaluable.
Your continuing partnership and support are critical to an interdisciplinary institute's such as TDAI ability to understand and grow our research community. I particularly appreciate your working with us on innovative ways to measure and represent the growth of collaborations through network analysis.
This team has made incredibly important contributions to helping prepare OSU for leadership roles in two identified areas of priority for the university. They have taken the results of their deep, disciplined studies to prepare clear, cogent summary documents that have/are being used by senior OSU research leaders to make key strategic business decisions from a more informed standpoint.
Robert (Joe) Shaw
Alba is an amazing partner and has brought tremendous value to our work on assessing the research impacts of Ohio State faculty in sustainability-related areas. In addition to her strong technical skills, she has a keen ability to extract key insights from the data. Her work was invaluable in helping us to assess the relative strengths and gaps in sustainability research at Ohio State. In addition, she is highly responsive and always willing to go the extra mile to customize the analysis and iterate to produce the results that are most. Our strategic visioning benefited greatly from her contributions and it has been a true pleasure to work with her.
Elena Irwin
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