Lancaster University Supports Early-Career Academics with a Global Vision

Photo Credit: Sheppard Robson

“If research is about ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’…PQDT Global provides the ladders onto those shoulders…”
– Andrew Barker, Director of Library Services & Learning Development, Lancaster University

Lancaster University is ranked as one of the United Kingdom’s top institutions with campuses in Lancaster, UK, Ghana, Beijing, and Leipzig, Germany. It was named International University of the Year for 2020 by The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2020. As a top global institution, Lancaster University continuously reflects on its vision, including how to make its research more visible around the world. In 2020, Lancaster University became a ProQuest content partner by including their theses in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. The University also subscribed to the full-text collection. By doing both, it amplifies not only the University’s research profile, but also each individual author’s profile. Further, it creates more efficiency for their internal researchers. Today, Lancaster’s graduate research is available to the entire ProQuest global community of over 4 million researchers across 3,100 institutions.

In a conversation with Annette Lawrence, Lancaster’s Assistant Librarian, shared that, “at the heart of Lancaster University’s strategy is the vision ‘to be a university that is globally significant – a sector leader and innovator’ with a ‘primary goal to consolidate Lancaster University’s status as a leading global research intensive university.’ In addition to our vision, it has also been a strategic goal of Lancaster’s to support early career researchers as many inquire about where their research will be made available so they can inform recruitment teams during the interview process. ProQuest is the perfect strategic partner to help accomplish both of these goals, as having theses available on the ProQuest platform makes their research discoverable to more people than ever before; giving them a truly global audience that they might not have had previously.”

By using ProQuest’s ETD Dashboard, Lancaster is able to measure this reach and impact with data from the ProQuest platform. Already, the results showed they were receiving additional usage from the United States, Australia, China, South Korea, and more that was additive to the traffic their Institutional Repository sees daily.

Their subscription to ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global delivered immediate success, with a jump to over 2,000 full text downloads in the first three months.

“I see PQDT as filling a critical gap – if a student wants to look for a dissertation or thesis then this is my ‘go to’ resource – seamless and easy to use. For me, it does an essential job, and does it well.”
– Lancaster University Librarian

Contributing and subscribing to ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global has reciprocal benefits. Lancaster researchers gain both access to unique research in their field and the ability to maximize the impact of their own outputs. Download the full case study to see Lancaster’s usage data and subscription results.

To learn more about how to include your institution’s graduate works in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global contact academic.relations@proquest.com.