01
Diagnose
Nexus Index
Use Nexus Index across records to assess whether their metadata supports discovery, attribution, and reuse by people and AI.
A clear view across five metadata facets.
Measure what matters!
Research that can bereused.
Attribution that can be traced.
Nexus Index shows whether a research record has the complete, machine-readable metadata needed for discovery, attribution, and reuse by people and AI.
Start with the index. See the gap. Choose the fix. Repair the record once.
Record-level diagnostic Transparent criteria Actionable by design
Example research record
10.0000 / open.record.2026
Two audiences
82%Nexus Index
Highly connected
Reusable by humans and AI agents.
Strong record links support attribution, access, and responsible reuse.
Provenance
DOIs, references, source
92%
People
Authors and ORCIDs
84%
Organizations
Affiliations and ROR
76%
Funding
Funders and grant IDs
61%
Access
Licences and text routes
88%
Next action: Resolve missing funder and grant identifiers to strengthen traceability.
Good questions
What Nexus Index is and is not.
Clear boundaries make the diagnostic more useful: it measures the record’s reuse readiness, not the prestige or quality of the research.
Metadata readiness≠research quality
Is Nexus Score a measure of research quality or prestige?+
No. The open methodology does not judge scientific merit, peer review, citations, journal prestige, or an author's quality. It diagnoses whether the open scholarly record exposes the connections needed for attribution, reading, and reuse.
What does ‘reusable’ mean here?+
A reusable record has enough structured, resolvable, and queryable information for people and machines to find the work, understand its provenance, reach its materials, and build on it responsibly.
How does Nexus Score relate to FAIR Data principles?+
Nexus Score is informed by FAIR Data and FORCE11 Data Citation principles. These are reference points, not pass/fail standards or certifications. Nexus Score uses observable record signals to assess broader metadata readiness and completeness for people and AI.
Who can work with Nexus Index today?+
Our current products and services are designed for publishers, institutions, AI companies, and scholarly service providers. Researcher- and funder-specific experiences are in development.
Do Nexus API and Nexus MCP remove the need to repair metadata?+
No. Nexus API checks reuse readiness in real time, while Nexus MCP measures agentic reuse with provenance and evidence. Neither can invent a missing author, institution, funder, or reference connection. Nexus Fix recovers missing metadata from published records so corrected information can support downstream tools.
The Nexus Index platform
From a missing signal to measurable reuse.
Actionable insights
Nexus Index turns a record-level assessment into practical tools and services for the organizations that publish, manage, process, and power the discovery of research.
02
Prioritise
Nexus Lens
Turn every missing signal into a field-level recommendation, documentation, and an ordered action plan.
Know what to fix first and why it matters.
03
Recover
Nexus Fix
Recover metadata from open sources, resolve identities and links, and prepare corrected metadata for submission to the relevant registry or platform.
Repair once; improve every downstream system.
04
Check
Nexus API
Run real-time reuse checks inside production workflows as records are published, ingested, transformed, or served.
Reuse readiness checked at the point of use.
05
Measure
Nexus MCP
Measure agentic reuse through a COUNTER-style service, with provenance and evidence for how AI agents access and use scholarly records.
Agentic reuse metrics with traceable provenance.
Fix once at the substrate. Flow everywhere downstream.
Crossref · DataCite · ORCID · ROR → open scholarly graph → discovery tools and AI agents
For the scholarly community
Every stakeholder. One connected scholarly record.
Whether you create, publish, fund, steward, process, or build discovery systems for research, Nexus Index turns metadata gaps into action that your part of the community can take.
Available now
Are we getting what we pay for?
Protect institutional attribution and credit across the open graph.
See whether publisher agreements translate into discoverability, whether affiliations resolve to your institution, and which gaps create manual reconciliation work.
Discuss this solutionWhat you can do
Audit publisher metadata before agreements and renewals
Trace ROR, ORCID, and affiliation coverage across outputs
Identify records your CRIS cannot ingest automatically
Outcome
Stronger visibility, better agreement evidence, and less manual cleanup.
Why Nexus Index exists
AI cannot attribute what the record does not connect.
Our 2026 attribution study tested the mechanism directly: when a metadata connection was hidden, the related task failed; restoring the matching connection recovered it.
625
records in the mixed pilot corpus
A deliberately uneven scholarly substrate.
469 tests
no mismatched restorations succeeded
Changing the wrong metadata facet restored none of the related tasks.
400 tests
no hidden-author links recovered
Additional search and compute recovered none of the missing author connections.
The Nexus Index use case: diagnose the missing connection, prioritise the repair, recover the metadata, then validate reuse readiness where the record is published or consumed.
Built in conversation with the community
Nexus Index is shaped by scrutiny and feedback.
We make the product’s scope, evidence, assumptions, and limitations clear so the scholarly community can understand what it does, challenge its approach, and help improve its direction.
Clear criteria
The product's signals, assumptions, evidence, and limitations are clearly explained.
Community feedback
The product direction is shaped through scrutiny, discussion, and partnership.
Works at every scale
A new journal can build complete records from day one; no citation history required.
Public-benefit direction
Developed with the scholarly commons protected at its core.
Institutions · Publishers · AI companies · Service providers
Make the scholarly record work for everyone who depends on it.
See how complete, connected metadata can improve discovery, attribution, and reuse.
Start a conversation