| Stakeholder groups that benefit | universities, researchers, editors, open infrastructures, governmental offices, research centers |
| Story | ImpactU is Colombia’s game-changing, open-source platform that is completely reshaping how we view and track university research.
The story started back in 2015 at the Universidad de Antioquia (UdeA). The university’s research teams realized that massive global rankings and traditional metrics—like the famous "h-index"—failed to show the real-world, social impact of their work. On top of that, universities faced a frustrating cycle: they had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to big commercial databases to basically buy back access to the very research they had funded and produced in the first place!
UdeA decided it was time for a change. After launching a few successful pilot studies, they set up a creative research lab called CoLaV in 2018 to build an automated, open system. They soon realized that mapping an entire country's intelligence required teamwork. In 2020, they partnered with Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana (UNAULA) and Universidad Externado de Colombia. By 2022, Universidad del Valle joined the alliance, followed later by ASCUN, an association representing 95 higher education institutions in Colombia.
So, what exactly does ImpactU do? Instead of locking data behind a paywall, ImpactU believes research is a public good. They built a giant, unified data lake containing over 2.7 million academic products from multiple disconnected sources—like government files, university repositories, and open databases.
But here is the coolest part: ImpactU doesn’t just count boring journal articles. It tracks social and artistic impact. It monitors when researchers appear in the news to talk about their discoveries, and it maps out software, patents, and community art projects. Thanks to their modular, open-source software—like their "Kahi" system which automatically cleans up messy data—universities can finally see their true strengths.
To keep this dream alive without draining university budgets, ImpactU operates on a "solidary membership model". Universities pay fair, annual fees split into ten "bands" depending on their size and financial capacity. The platform also plans to offer custom data consulting and specialized analysis for government agencies and local companies to diversify its income.
Looking ahead to 2030, this collective of universities aims to grow to 90 active members and eventually share their open-source blueprint with other Latin American countries. ImpactU is proving that science is at its best when it is collaborative, open, and built for everyone. |