Symplectic Elements enables you to collect, collate, and assess research inputs, outputs, outcomes, and professional activities in one single, integrated system.
Whether you are running faculty annual reviews, preparing for national assessments, or tracking strategic goals, our flexible workflows reduce administrative burden, improve data quality, and give you the insight needed to drive better decisions.
Reduce the burden of compliance
Government and funding bodies around the world mandate reporting on research quality, impact, and open access policy compliance. We know how much time and effort this can take – so we’ve built tools to make it easier.
By reusing the rich data already captured in Symplectic Elements and integrating with the widest range of external sources in the industry, you can eliminate manual re-keying and spreadsheets, cut down on duplication, and focus on strategic insight.
Our intelligent data harvesting pulls metrics and metadata from Dimensions, Web of Science, Scopus, Europe PMC, Altmetric, and more – helping you make informed quality judgments and prepare high-quality submissions.
Flexible workflows for every review type
Our configurable modules support both person-level and item-level evaluations, enabling structured assessment of researchers, publications, impact case studies, and other research outcomes. You can design simple one-step submissions or complex, multi-stage assessments.
For scenarios including:
- Annual collection of research outputs against quality thresholds.
- Academic activity reviews (annual review, promotion, tenure).
- Peer review of publications and outputs
- Impact case study evaluation (for REF or public showcase).
- Accreditation and benchmarking exercises
- Internal benchmarking and preparation for REF or PBRF.
The deeply integrated environment we now have will greatly enhance our ability to manage the range of repository activities and strengthen our position in preparing for any future research assessment exercises.
National assessments
We offer specific functionality for national assessments, including the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the UK and the Performance-based Research Fund (PBRF) in New Zealand.
As assessment frameworks evolve, Symplectic Elements evolves with them. Our platform supports the full lifecycle of output-level evaluation, enabling institutions to assess research on its own merits, independently of individual profiles.
From managing submission pipelines to assigning expert reviewers, tracking progress via dashboards, and maintaining audit trails, Symplectic Elements ensures you’re prepared for REF2029 and future national assessments.
Reflections on the REF 2021
“The most frequently mentioned reason for the negative attitudes to the REF is the excessive burden it creates in terms of time, resources, and worfklow.” (RAND Europe, 2021)
In this paper we explore:
- The role of Symplectic Elements in bulk data validation checks at Liverpool John Moores University.
- How University of Essex used the Impact Module to collect REF3 Impact Case Studies.
- Anglia Ruskin University’s progress in moving from manual to systematic curation.
- How University College London used the Open Access Monitor functionality to ensure they meet the REF’s Open Access requirements.
Reflections on the REF 2021
May 9, 2022New paper explores the role of Symplectic Elements as a Research Information Management system in supporting the REF 2021 process,…
Faculty annual reviews
Faculty Annual Reviews are vital for professional development, recognition, and strategic planning. Symplectic Elements reduces the workload for both academic staff and administrators by bringing together verified data, intuitive workflows, and tailored evaluation forms in one place.
Tracking impact
Our specially designed Impact Module lets researchers or their proxies capture and build evidence of the wider influence of their work over time, adding narrative updates, files, links and references as impact develops.
By supporting the creation of structured and reusable records, Symplectic Elements helps institutions curate these into case studies, repurpose them for communications and include them in reporting to funders.
We could use the system for reporting across a number of different faculty activities and evaluations, including promotion and tenure, annual review, and – new to our university – post-tenure review. That made the product immediately critical for a number of faculty processes.
Discover Symplectic
Learn more about our products and request a free, no-obligation demo.
