Experts from the Perm National Research Polytechnic University (PNRPU) have introduced an online platform designed to help researchers pick scientific examiners and identify potential competitors for theses. The service bears a resemblance to dating applications in its matchmaking approach, as noted by PNIPU’s press service.
Perm Polytechnic explains that scholars often need to collaborate with others on joint projects. Yet the closed nature of the scientific community and a lack of practical tools can make finding the right partners a frustrating task.
The new system uses artificial intelligence to analyze the digital footprints left by Russian scientists through their publications. By scanning articles, books, and conference materials, the platform identifies individuals whose work aligns with specific scientific domains and facilitates quick outreach.
The neural network draws from a database that includes more than 500 universities and research organizations across the Russian Federation, including departments of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It evaluates similarities by comparing the digital footprints of two scientists and assigns a similarity score ranging from 0 to 1. A score near 0 indicates little or no overlap in research activity, while a score near 1 signals closely related areas of inquiry, as explained by Evgeniy Kononov, a graduate student at the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics of PNIPU.
Users can search for scientists by full name or by their Scopus identifier, a unified database for scientific literature. The platform also supports text-based searches, allowing users to search by keywords or phrases found in article titles. In addition, the system identifies the closest colleagues of the selected scientist, enabling deeper networking opportunities.
The so-called Russian “scientific Tinder” will be offered in two forms: a public website and a restricted version with extended capabilities. Perm Polytechnic emphasized that such a service has no complete analogue in Russia or abroad at this time.
There have been discussions about creating analogous platforms in Russia for affluent users, signaling an interest in expanding the reach of research collaboration tools. The new platform represents a step toward modernizing how researchers discover compatible partners, streamline outreach, and accelerate collaborative work across the national science landscape.