Background

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The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences (including mathematics, artificial intelligence and computer science), mainly to universities in the United Kingdom.

Recently, Dr. Shi Zhou, the supervisor, attended a talk where an EPSRC officer said there were a lot complains about the way they defined research areas and research communities.

The officer said it was not clear how fine or coarse they should be divided into, and they should be constantly changed to reflect the funding and research trend.

This reminded Dr. Zhou about the community detection methods and the concept of modularity. The issue can addressed if the problem is properly defined.

EPRSC’s research funding data, which is publicly available online, can be used. Each funding record includes a lot of useful information, from which the Research Topic-based Network (for communities of research topics) as well as the Researcher-based Network (for communities of researchers) can be constructed and analysed.

Taking into account the volume and value of funding, and the change of these values over years, may reveal more interesting insights.

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