Visibility of forest science research in social media, the news, and public policy

One-way knowledge exchange via scholarly communications (journals, books, and conference proceedings) is often the default knowledge mobilization approach for scientists. The visibility of this work outside of the academic realm can be captured using Altmetrics. This project will provide large-scale analysis of the forest science field and its different subareas, and the extent to which this research gets mentioned on social media and cited in the news or in policy documents. We will use state-of-the-art science mapping and community detection techniques based on citation relationship to identify distinct publication clusters, and use topic modelling techniques to characterize these communities. The project will provide a large-scale overview of forest science research dissemination and use over the last decade. Also, we will identify how attention to the literature is distributed across subdisciplines, research areas, and topics within the field. The findings will help decision-makers identify areas of forest science where knowledge exchange is more frequent, areas one could look to for best practices in knowledge exchange, and areas where further attention to knowledge exchange efforts may be required.