Advancing library roles in research analytics: a case study of data-driven grant proposal support service

This case report demonstrates how a health sciences librarian designed and delivered a data-driven research analytics service to support a multi-institutional pre-award proposal.

The librarian was invited to join a multi-institutional research team. After defining the project scope, the librarian developed and executed a structured search strategy in a key research database for collaborative research publications across the participating institutions. After two reviewers independently screened search results for relevance, the librarian applied validated measures and metrics and conducted quantitative data analysis and visualization with bibliographic metadata collected from the included research publications. The findings offered quantitative evidence that illustrates the dynamics and patterns in research productivity, collaboration networks, and topic distribution within the collaborative research effort. This librarian's work contributes to a timely delivery of actionable insights, directly informing the research team's proposal strategy and preparation.

This case presents a replicable framework for embedding research analytics services within library practice to support research performance evaluation. Leveraging librarians' expertise in literature search, research databases, bibliometrics, and data-driven workflows, librarians demonstrate their growing prominence as essential partners in research proposal development and research analytics.