Matthew A. Vetter, Professor of English, is part of an international team of researchers recently awarded a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation—the nonprofit organization behind Wikipedia.
The project, titled “The State of Science and Wikimedia: Who Is Doing What, and Who Is Funding It?,” brings together leading experts in open knowledge from around the world, including Brett Buttliere (University of Warsaw), Lane Rasberry (University of Virginia), Iolanda Pensa (University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland), Susanna Mkrtchyan (Armenia National Academy of Science), and Daniel Mietchen (Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure, Germany). The team’s research seeks to understand the global scope of Wikimedia-related scientific work—who is conducting it, what has been accomplished, and who has funded these efforts. By employing bibliometric analysis through the Scholia dataset (Nielsen et al., 2017), the project will map the network of people, institutions, and funders behind Wikimedia’s science and research activities.
“Wikimedia platforms like Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons are among the world’s most popular sources of scientific information,” said Vetter. “But despite their importance, there’s little documentation of how Wikimedia-based research is organized or supported. Our project aims to provide a clear picture of that ecosystem and highlight opportunities for collaboration and funding. ”
The research addresses a long-standing challenge within the Wikimedia movement: while thousands of scientists, educators, and scholars have engaged with Wikimedia projects, there has been limited coordination and recognition for this work—particularly in academic and funding contexts. By identifying key contributors, funders, and successful initiatives, the project will lay the groundwork for stronger partnerships between Wikimedia and the global research community. This initiative builds on earlier collaborations by the research team to promote Wikimedia as a serious platform for science communication and scholarly engagement. Their previously funded project, "Developing Wikimedia Impact Metrics as a Sociotechnical Solution for Encouraging Funder and Academic Engagement," sought to discover the barriers academics face when contributing to Wikimedia projects and developed a set of metrics that would serve as incentivization.
“Our ultimate goal is to help funders, researchers, and institutions see the impact of Wikimedia in advancing open science,” Vetter said. “By making that impact visible, we can encourage more investment in projects that share knowledge freely and globally.” Findings from the study will be shared with the Wikimedia and academic communities through open-access publications, conference presentations, and public data releases over the coming year.
For more information and updates about the project, please visit the research documentation page, which will be updated as the research progresses.