The IGSD Visualisation Project is designed to map and visualise Warwick’s research contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This pilot project uses data-driven visualisations to support strategic planning, strengthen interdisciplinary collaborations, and highlight Warwick’s role in addressing global challenges. By exploring research outputs, collaborations, and partnerships, the project identifies opportunities for growth and showcases the University’s contributions to sustainable development.
Over successive iterations, the project team has developed a compact toolkit of visual components that transform raw publication data into clear, decision-ready insights, along with the capability to deliver a service that bridges various visualisation platforms with end-users.
Objectives
Research visualisation – visualise the landscape of the University’s SDG-related research.
Collaboration facilitation – help facilitate cross-disciplinary and cross-faculty collaboration within the University.
Practice improvement – contribute to improving the reporting and evaluation practices of the University’s SDG-relevant research.
Visualise existing research collaborations across disciplines, departments and geographical regions.
Analyse the relevance of the University’s publications, projects and activities to the 16 SDGs.
Explore opportunities to optimise research-output reporting to highlight the University’s SDG-relevant work.
Identify niches for new research programmes and activities to nurture an interdisciplinary research culture.
Our ready-made visual components – each answers a question stakeholders actually ask.
SDG treemap & time-trend–Which goals dominate our output, and how is that changing?
Faculty × SDG heat-map–Where are the strengths and gaps inside each faculty?
Collaboration suite– co-author network plus global choropleth and “Top-10 partners” bars (Who works with whom & where?).
Theme explorer– keyword word-clouds and a circular Sankey that reveal how SDGs cluster within single papers (Which topics naturally link?).
Benchmark view– Warwick vs. peer-sector treemap (How do we compare externally?).
People-search dashboard– filter Warwick experts by SDG, keyword or geography (Who could join my bid?).
One-click slide deck– instantly packages any of the above into a branded PowerPoint.
Screenshots on this page below come from live use-cases logged in a Visualisation Diary.
We bridge complex data platforms and decision-makers’ needs – listening first, visualising second.
Scoping call (free)– clarify the question, pick the right visuals, agree outputs.
Regular Reporting– Publication data mapped to SDGs, collaboration links and geography, plus a short narrative brief. For specific visual use cases.
Event toolkit– find collaborators, match outputs to live calls (e.g. UKRI), map stakeholders for targeted proposals.
Custom embeds– any visual can be styled for SharePoint, faculty pages or public websites.
On Demand Reporting - Bespoke custom visualisations specific to projects, high profile work, ranking reports and more. Whatever you need, our service can provide it.
All work is built on top of publication data, this means with the introduction of a wide scale platform (Pure, Elsevier, Scopus) our product will always work as the link between the data and those who need true outputs and insights from that data.
What the pilot leaves behind – a capability the School can reuse and extend.
Scalable dashboards on Warwick virtual machines with interactive filters (SDG, faculty, country, year).
Templates - An important point with our capacity is that, despite having set visualisations for some of our reporting, everything can be used as a baseline or template for something bigger or even completely different, all of the data processing is automated allowing our outputs to be rapid, whatever your use case may be, our capacity will be able to manage it.
Secure & adaptable– outputs can be anonymised or aggregated; new keyword lists or policy data can be slot straight in.
Proven demand– Visuals helped with the Sustainability Spotlight COLAB2 workshop and informed the Nexus COP 30 invite list while also contributing to a large scale Law School project providing their lead Visualisation.
Actionable baseline– ~ ⅓ of publications already span more than one department, providing a measurable starting point for new seed-funds.
Growth path– The important note is that with the introduction of the new Warwick system, our project is unchanged as it was always meant to build on top of a database regardless acting as the bridge between data and academics. As a service we can be hands free, as a capacity our scripts are adaptable to many different topics, cases and circumstances. This means this project can to be looking for collaboration.
This type of visualisation is extremely appealing, clear and easy to read. Uses for a visual like this could range from: identifying leading collaboration countries, gaps in collaboration, research areas that are underrepresented, reporting and infographics.
A graph like this circular sankey is a complex but beautiful representation of the interconnections within research, in this case it identifies SDGs appearing together in research and translates them into visuals using chords, however it can be used for: researcher engagement, journal mapping, topic interconnections and it can also be art!
Maps like this can be very informative, there is a wide range of information that can be shown such as: Existing partnerships, global collaborations, areas that partnerships and collaborations can be developed and more. This code specifically can be used as a template for any kind of choropleth or map visualisation someone may need.
Network graphs are very powerful, the aim is to show connections between anything, in this case the sample would be used to show co-authorship connections. This can be within institutes or even across multiple (with data), other networks can be used for journals, topics, keywords and many more.
Using a cluster visualisation like this has a paint splatter effect, it is very informative at first glance depending on what needs to be shown. This specific example uses sample data to show the way that SDGs per paper interact, meaning for example the green splatter (SDG 3) has similar concepts that are adapted to other SDGs.
Custom Visualisation Dashboard, built for a Warwick website showing a fully interactive map combined with features for pop up boxes, filters that automatically update the Visualisation as well as combining colour coding for easy understanding.
Let’s collaborate
Have data and a question? We’ll turn it into decision-ready insight. Our modular toolkit produces web dashboards, embeddable graphics or a one-click slide deck—tailored to your needs and timeline.
What we offer
Scoping call (free) – frame your question, outline data needs and agree outputs.
Pilot dashboard – your data mapped to SDGs, collaborations and geography, plus a short narrative brief.
Quarterly insight pack – refreshed metrics, interactive maps and an auto-formatted slide deck.
Custom visualisations – diagrams, maps and web components that drop straight into project or faculty sites.
Capability
Server-hosted dashboards on Warwick virtual machines.
