Help Connect The Scientific Research Community

Why did we launch Scientistt.net?

The brightest minds are working to solve humanity’s biggest problems but working in research can be a lonely profession. In fact, a recent study by UC Berkley has shown that almost 50% of PhD students meet the criteria to be categorized as depressed.

Networking is an essential part of the research process to promote collaboration, generate new ideas, and prevent duplication of effort. Further, it is crucial to the emotional wellbeing of researchers, of whom we rely on to advance the field of knowledge.

Unlike current platforms aimed solely at academics to submit preprints and publications, Scientistt provides a platform for a community of passionate students and researchers to connect and collaborate with each other, voice their opinions, and get recognition for their work.

Our Progress and Team

We have validated this need for connection and the current lack of solutions out there through launching our beta platform, scientistt.net, on 21st March 2020 with an online research poster competition due to the several canceled conferences around the world where students would have presented their research. So far, we have over 1000 members from more than 30 major universities in the UK. These figures were achieved without any marketing spend, as Universities recognised a need for a platform like ours during the pandemic and promoted the site to their research students.

We have produced an MVP, validated it, and launched a beta version in only two months, with a total spend of less than £2000. This has been possible because of the work-ethic and well-balanced skillset of the team. We have a mix of research, finance, marketing, and programming experience. 

Future plans

Using the funding raised, we will bring in new features such as mentoring and online courses, and use our collaboration from UK universities to grow our user base abroad. We also have research student ambassadors at various universities who advertise the platform through social media and emails. Using PR and marketing, we will continue to reach out to more students and researchers to join the community and make it more valuable for them.