Analysis of a database of research projects using text mining and link analysis

This chapter describes an application of text mining and link analysis to the database of research and development projects funded within the information technology European program in years 2000–2005. The main items in the research project database were textual description of each project and the list of organizations participating in the project. The goal was to find various informative insights into the research project database, which would enable better understanding of the past dynamics and provide ground for better planning of the future research programs. In the analysis we used three types of analytic methods: text mining, link analysis, and several visualization techniques. The main emphasis was on the analysis of various aspects of research collaboration between different objects (such as institution, countries, and research areas).