Coherent Digital Launches Applied Science Commons

Contact: Toby Green

Coherent Digital today announced the launch of Applied Science Commons, a groundbreaking initiative to make high-impact, real-world STEM content more accessible to academic and other research institutions through a faster, more comprehensive approach.

The initiative will curate, index, and preserve unique, practical, high-impact research from organizations on the frontlines that typically don’t publish their findings in books or journals.

Toby Green, Publisher, said: “Our research shows that in journals, there is a growing number of citations to nontraditional sources such as websites, reports, case studies, technical documents, and social media—content that isn’t published formally, and yet it comes from trustworthy, reputable sources. Even as the volume and importance of this fugitive material grow, much of it remains outside the main academic discovery services.”

Applied Science Commons will identify, enrich, and make these nontraditional materials as easy to find, use, and cite as journal articles. Also, Coherent’s preservation efforts aim to ensure that the content doesn’t disappear.

“Funders increasingly want research outputs that demonstrate impact and societal returns,” Green said. “In critical fields, such as climate, this is leading some research institutions to publish their latest findings outside journals, in order to reach a broader audience faster. ”

Coherent selects materials for their teaching and learning relevance from a range of reputable, global sources, including corporations, industry professionals, consultants, government agencies, research institutes, think tanks, associations, and service organizations such as hospitals.

Items include technical reports and case studies, consultant reports and feasibility studies, policy and white papers, podcasts, blogs, videos, industry and government publications, and community impact assessments.

All items are enriched with Content Object Identifiers (COIs), MARC records, and metadata tools such as tagging and categorization, to ensure ease of citation, tracking, and integration into academic workflows. This curated content provides immediate, actionable insights and recommendations, often well in advance of traditional book or journal publication, delivering millions of items that would not otherwise become part of the scholarly record.

Stephen Rhind-Tutt, Coherent’s President, said: “We’ve invested five years and millions of dollars to build a system capable of indexing and enriching grey literature at speed and volume. We’re excited to expand our work from our traditional focus on the humanities and social sciences to encompass applied sciences such as engineering and computing.”

Applied Science Commons will be presented for the first time at this month's Charleston Conference. The first module, Public Health and Social Care, is available now; the second module, Computer Science, Data, and AI, will launch in early 2025.

About Coherent Digital

We serve over 1,500 customers on six continents with collections and services for research and learning. We specialize in finding and preserving endangered materials—grey literature, primary sources, new media, voices from the Global South—and making them accessible. We cover all disciplines including the humanities, social sciences, and STEM.