Research Commons: A New Resource Collection Added to the Web of Science Platform

A new resource collection – Research Commons – has been made available on the Clarivate Web of Science platform since late 2025. The collection has already drawn considerable attention from researchers, as it includes publications that previously could not be found in the Web of Science database. Research Commons functions as a separate collection containing publication data not indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection, aggregated from openly accessible bibliographic sources.

What Does Research Commons Include?

Research Commons encompasses more than 32 million publications from the past decade, drawn from journals indexed in open bibliographic platforms such as OpenAlex, CrossRef, and others. At present, materials from this collection represent approximately 21% of all content discoverable through the Web of Science platform.

Key characteristics of the collection:

• 53% of the content consists of publications authored in developing countries.
• 43% covers topics in the social sciences and humanities.
• 39% of all publications in the collection are available as open access.

Benefits for Researchers

Research Commons broadens the visibility and discoverability of scholarly work, particularly research output originating from developing regions. By significantly expanding the overall volume of searchable records in Web of Science, it enhances the scope of literature reviews and citation tracking.

Importantly, the collection includes citing sources that reference articles published in Web of Science–indexed journals. Even if these citing sources appear in non-indexed journals, they are captured within Research Commons, making it easier for authors to identify and analyze their citation landscape.

What Research Commons Is Not

It is essential to clarify that journals and publications included in Research Commons are not indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection. Therefore, they do not qualify as Web of Science–indexed publications for research assessment purposes.

Because Research Commons imports data from open and diverse bibliographic resources:

• Metadata may be less complete or less accurate than Core Collection records.
• The collection may include non–peer-reviewed documents. As a result, the strict quality standards applied to Web of Science–indexed journals do not apply to content in this collection.

Integration with Researcher Profiles

Records from Research Commons are not automatically added to Web of Science researcher profiles. Authors wishing to present both indexed and non-indexed outputs may manually add relevant publications from Research Commons to their profiles.

How to Access Research Commons

The collection is available through the Advanced Search option on the Web of Science platform. Currently, searching the Research Commons dataset is possible only in English.

Learn More

• Web of Science Help Center
• Expanding the Web of Science platform with Research Commons