...lower the threshold...for starting interdisciplinary research projects. Catalyst is the Tinder for scientists, an app with the goal to connect researchers from different disciplines sharing the same question.
Research is, everybody who is part of that enterprise knows that, about linking together ideas. However, you as a researcher know only a limited range of persons - in particular when you are fairly new in that world, e.g. as a first-year PhD student. On top of that the peers in the research environment usually share the background with you. What if you have this specific question and you know somebody can answer it, but it is somebody from a different area? Say, you are a biologist and you have never heard of t-SNE, but you are seeking for someone who might help you in finding clusters in population data of Oystercatcher populations. Or what if you have this specific method for relative, comparison-based classification but you do not know where to use it? Catalyst is the app you are searching for.
Catalyst is based on so-called QI-cards (Question/Idea-cards). A QI-card contains a shortly summarized, understandable research question or an idea for a collaboration. You as a user can create those cards. Other users then get to see those cards by swiping through an entire pile of them. If interested swipe right, if not swipe left. If the creator of the QI-card which you find interesting as well is interested in one of your QI-cards, you get matched. Catalyst links you together by exchanging contact information.
During the IMPRS-IS (International Max Planck Research School - Intelligent Systems) Bootcamp in the year 2022 a small group of people came up with the idea to create a Tinder-like interface to enable interdisciplinary research. From that idea, which has been pitched the first time during a session of that bootcamp, there evolved a group of 5 persons who dedicated parts of their time to make this idea reality. We, these 5 PhD-students, are working on this project in our free time. Catalyst, the app, developed step by step. And we are now very proud to tell you that a first prototypical version of Catalyst exists! We are currently looking for financial support to get a first beta version ready. If you are interested, check out this webpage regularly. Stay catalyzed! ;)
See the DEMO_prototyp.m4v file!