How to find research collaborators from an abstract

Step 1Paste your abstract

Go to Discover and open Partner search. Paste the abstract into the box and click Find partners. Show researchers at narrows the search to universities and institutes or to companies, and Any organization searches both.

Say what you need as well as what you've done. In this example, the last sentence asks for "partners with experience in scalable thin-film deposition and in pouch-cell manufacturing", and that steers the results toward people who can fill the gap.

What you paste stays private: it isn't in the page's address, and the researchers you find aren't told you searched.

Step 2Read the results

Each card shows the researcher's main field, their organization, a percentage, and what the match came from: their publication record, their patent record, or their bio. Below that are a short summary of their work, their main topics, and how many research outputs and patents they have.

The order and the percentage measure different things, so a 70% can sit above a 73%. The percentage is how close the single best-matching part of a researcher's record comes to your abstract. The order weighs their bio, publications, and patents together, so someone who matches well on all three ranks above someone who's a little closer on one.

Look past the top card. A researcher whose summary mentions the exact gap you named, here thin-film deposition, is often a better first call than the highest percentage.

Step 3Shortlist the ones worth a closer look

Click Save on each researcher you want to come back to. They're kept on your Saved page, where you can add a note to each one and export the list as a CSV to share with colleagues.

Follow is different: it puts a researcher's new publications in the activity feed on your dashboard.

Step 4Check the fit before you write

Click a researcher's name to open their profile. The Match score panel compares their work with your own profile rather than with the abstract, so it's a second opinion. The percentage at the top is how close your research is to theirs, and the bars below add expertise overlap, how recent their work is, and how often it's cited.

Why? See the AI analysis writes a short assessment of the pairing: whether it's a strong fit, what you need and what they offer, and what a collaboration could look like. Free includes a monthly allowance of analyses, and Pro is unlimited. What the AI collaboration analysis tells you explains each part.

The profile's other tabs answer the practical questions: Research outputs for what they've published lately, Patents for what they've invented, and Funding for who has paid for their work.

Step 5Get in touch

If the researcher is a Helikon member, their profile has a Message button. Keep the first message short: who you are, the problem you're working on, and what you'd like to talk about.

Most researchers in the results aren't members yet, because their profiles come from the public research record. For them, the profile has Invite to Helikon instead, or you can write to them the usual way through their university page.