Dimensions has a series of in-built categorisation systems which are used by funders and researchers around the world, and which were originally defined by subject matter experts outside of Dimensions. Each of these is listed below. (Please note that not all categorisation schemes are available in all Dimensions versions. If you are using the Free Dimensions version you will only be able to use the Fields of Research and Sustainable Development Goals schemes).
Fields of Research (ANZSRC 2020)
Fields of Research covers all areas of research and emerging areas of study from the Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC). Fields of Research (FoR) include major fields and related sub-fields of research and emerging areas of study. The ANZSRC system has three levels (2-, 4- and 6-digit codes). The implementation in Dimensions categorizes on 2- and 4-digit codes only.
Research, Condition, and Disease Categorization (RCDC)
This categorisation system is used by the NIH to report to Congress and is a biomedical system consisting of 237 categories, some of which are very specific in topic (e.g. "ataxia telangiectasia"), and others more general (e.g. "neuroscience").
Health Research Classification System (HRCS)
The HRCS system is used by a large number of health research funders in the UK, and is subdivided into the Research Activity Classifications (RAC) and Health Categories (HC).
Broad Research Areas (BRA)
A categorisation scheme used by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC, Australia). It consists of four categories - Basic Science, Clinical Medicine and Science, Health Services Research and Public Health.
Health Research Areas (HRA)
We often get requests to help distinguish between research on the basic to applied spectrum, and research that is about translating discoveries into patient care. Of increasing interest is identifying research that is of public and global health concern. We have therefore created the Health Research Area categories - Biomedical, Clinical, Health services & systems and Population & Society. The Health Research Areas is the only classification system which is not based on emulation of a pre-existing system.
Common Scientific Outline (CSO) and Cancer Type codes
The Common Scientific Outline or 'CSO' is a classification system organized into six broad areas of scientific interest in cancer research. The CSO is complemented by a standard cancer type coding scheme. The CSO is maintained by the International Cancer Research Partnership and further information on versions, using the CSO and training guides can be accessed at https://www.icrpartnership.org/cso
Units of Assessment (UoA)
The Units of Assessment are the 34 categories of research used by the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 in the United Kingdom. Similar to the 2-digit FoR divisions, the UoA categories span all of the sciences, humanities and social sciences but at a slightly more granular level. The REF process is undertaken every 7 years in the UK, and enables comparison and benchmarking between research organisations using the UoA categories.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This set of 17 interconnected goals was adopted by United Nations members states in 2015, aiming at addressing global challenges, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice.
How are these categories constructed in Dimensions?
These standard categories are built in Dimensions using emulations of the categorisation systems led by machine learning. Briefly, this is done by taking a set of documents coded by subject matter experts in that system, and then feeding these into the Dimensions machine learning algorithm, before then using what the system has learned to automatically categorise new documents. The algorithms are refined through identification of false positives and negatives, and once a high enough level of accuracy has been achieved these definitions are then used in Dimensions to automatically label all information coming into the system.