SignalSpore Research Intelligence

Find universities by research expertise.

SignalSpore maps university research strength, topic expertise, funding momentum, specialization, and student research opportunity using public data, transparent scoring, confidence flags, and source receipts. It maps research strength, funding momentum, topic expertise, and student research opportunity through public-data driven research rankings.

Search any research topic to see which universities are strongest, rising fastest, most specialized, best funded, or most accessible for student research.

Every ranking includes a receipt: source data, scoring components, update dates, confidence level, and caveats.

SignalSpore is a university research intelligence platform and research expertise graph, not a general admissions list and not a single prestige ranking.

Methodology: SignalSpore Research Graph v0.1 ranks school-topic pairs using research strength, expertise density, momentum, funding pulse, topic leadership, undergraduate research opportunity, and data confidence.

Current public snapshot sources include OpenAlex, ROR, College Scorecard / IPEDS, and roadmap enrichment from NCSES HERD, NIH RePORTER, NSF Award Search, USAspending, DOE/OSTI, ClinicalTrials.gov, and patents.

Machine-readable docs are available at /llms.txt and /skill.md. Start with /topics/robotics, /compare, or /api/research-area?q=robotics.

Public preview coverage

Current public snapshot: 690 school-topic rows, 6,163 institution profiles, 0 ranked institutions, and 6 searchable topic records. Topic universe status: preview_seeded, not universal OpenAlex topic coverage. Coverage and scoring are different: institution profiles do not imply research strength. Directory-only profiles are explicitly separate from research-ranked school-topic rows. No sufficient research evidence for this topic is shown instead of fabricated scores.

Methodology: SignalSpore Research Graph v0.1. Dataset version: research-refresh-2026-06-18. No synthesized rows. Source statuses are snapshot, inactive, pending, blocked, or scheduled_refresh only when monitored refresh metadata exists.

API build-info · build-info text · coverage model · source health · research-area API

Data sources and source status

Directory sources: IPEDS, DAPIP, and College Scorecard. Research identity and evidence sources: ROR, OpenAlex, HERD, NIH RePORTER, and NSF Award Search.

HERD, NIH RePORTER, and NSF Award Search are inactive unless import-run metadata proves active scoring. SignalSpore does not claim instant source status.