The 2012 release of Global Research Benchmarking System based on Scopus publication and citation data from the years 2008 through 2011 is now available online at www.researchbenchmarking.org.

In 2012 several important milestones have been achieved with GRBS, most notably, the inclusion of an additional 607 universities from EU, Norway and Switzerland. This now brings the total number of universities covered in GRBS to over 1,300 globally. With this and the added data from this release, benchmarking and rating results can now be accessed for analyzing research performance against a more comprehensive pool of universities globally. The benchmarking dashboard now includes a feature to display the changes in indicator values between the 2011 and 2012 releases to facilitate understanding the change in standing against benchmarking universities. Through the Center for Measuring University Performance, research funding data for US universities from the National Science Foundation is again available. The results in the Sustainable Development sub-areas for the 2012 release will be available in a month’s time.

As a truly open collaborative effort of the academic community, the GRBS initiative has benefitted greatly from the support and feedback provided by the network of partners, international advisory board members, domain experts, and registered users throughout 2012.