The Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the USDA’s chief in-house scientific research agency, and the National Agricultural Library, one of four national US libraries, have selected Symplectic Elements as their first integrated research information management system. The system will allow the agency to better disseminate and report on the research conducted by the 2,000+ researchers across the agency.
The USDA Agricultural Research Service employs over 6,000 people and has a fiscal budget of over $1 billion, while the National Agricultural Library houses one of the world’s largest collections devoted to agriculture and its related sciences. Elementswill allow the organization to automate a large part of their research information collection, build in-depth reports for analysis and in time be used to help populate the public-facing USDA VIVO research networking and discovery portal.
“Being selected by the USDA is a testament to the amazing work we are doing at the company,” says Jonathan Breeze, CEO, Symplectic. “Symplectic has a long history of helping some of the world’s leading research institutions understand the scholarly output of their researchers and we look forward to working with ARS, our first federal agency.”
About USDA
In 2012, USDA commemorated and celebrated its 150th anniversary. Founded in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law an act of Congress establishing the United States Department of Agriculture.
Two and one-half years later, in what would be his final annual message to the Congress; Lincoln called USDA, “The People’s Department.” Through USDA’s work on food, agriculture, economic development, science, natural resource conservation and a host of issues, USDA still fulfills Lincoln’s vision – touching the lives of every American, every day.