R7+ Research Collaboration Initiative
Meridian connects researchers across R7+ member institutions through intelligent matching based on publication history, expertise, and collaboration goals. Data-driven discovery, replacing the limitations of personal networks.
8
Countries
100+
Researchers
R7+
Institutions
Process
Authenticate with your ORCID iD. Your publications, affiliations, and keywords are imported automatically in seconds.
Describe your current research focus, collaboration goals, and what kind of expertise you are looking for. Voice or text.
Our matching engine surfaces researchers by thematic similarity or complementary expertise, weighted by recency of work.
Capabilities
Search across 8 countries and dozens of institutions. Find collaborators you would never encounter through personal networks alone.
Go beyond keyword overlap. Meridian identifies researchers whose skills fill the gaps in your own profile.
Recent publications carry more weight. Matching reflects your current trajectory, not just your career history.
Your ORCID profile populates everything. A complete, match-ready researcher profile in under five minutes.
Consortium
Meridian is developed under the R7+ initiative, a collaboration between leading research organisations spanning eight countries and multiple disciplines.
CSIC
Spain
Technical Lead
CNR
Italy
CNRS
France
RIKEN
Japan
Fraunhofer
Germany
UKRI
United Kingdom
NSERC
Canada
NSF
United States
Questions
Meridian requests read-only access to your public ORCID data: publications, affiliations, education, and keywords. We never modify your ORCID profile. All imported data is already publicly visible on your ORCID page.
Meridian uses dual-embedding matching. Your publication history and stated interests generate a profile embedding representing your expertise. Your collaboration goals generate a complementary embedding representing what you need. We match both against other researchers using cosine similarity, with time-weighting so recent work carries more influence.
During the pilot phase, Meridian is open to researchers affiliated with R7+ member institutions: CSIC (Spain), CNR (Italy), CNRS (France), RIKEN (Japan), Fraunhofer (Germany), UKRI (UK), NSERC (Canada), and NSF (US). Any researcher with an ORCID iD can request access.
All data is stored in EU-hosted infrastructure compliant with GDPR. Voice recordings are transcribed and immediately deleted — only the text is retained. Uploaded PDFs are used solely for embedding generation and are never displayed to other users. You can delete your entire profile at any time.
Meridian is free for researchers. The platform is developed and maintained by CSIC as part of the R7+ international research collaboration initiative.