In this post, published in Brian Kelly's UK Web Focus blog, I review how institutions that are part of the Catalan R&D environment make use of social media and I describe the benefits of this approach. I also discuss the metrics used by the Catalan Administration to evaluate and measure the impact of the government’s presence in this area and their benefits for the public. Image:

1. Social Media Analytics for R&D: a Catalan
Vision
Xavier Lasauca i Cisa (@xavierlasauca) is the person in charge of Knowledge
Management and Information Technologies on R&D (Directorate General for
Research, Ministry of Economy and Knowledge, Government of Catalonia).
In this post I review how institutions that are part of the Catalan R&D
environment make use of social media and I describe the benefits of this
approach. I also discuss the metrics used by the Catalan Administration to
evaluate and measure the impact of the government’s presence in this area
and their benefits for the public.
Image: Research.cat 2.0, by Maricel Saball (CC BY 3.0), adapted from My social
networks
Introduction
The Directorate General for Research is the unit of the Generalitat de Catalunya
(Government of Catalonia) responsible for promoting science and technology
research centres, planning training and career development of researchers,
promoting Catalan participation in national, European and international research
programs, and designing actions on science communication and dissemination in
Catalonia, among other functions. This unit, along with the Directorate General of
Universities, is part of the Secretariat for Universities and Research, which at the
same time is part of the Ministry of Economy and Knowledge, headed by Minister
Andreu Mas-Colell. The parallels with the British political system lie in the fact that
the Directorate General for Research is the equivalent to the Government Office for
Science within the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.

2. As the person responsible for Knowledge Management and ICT on R&D, I am in
charge of the management of R&D computer applications at the Directorate General
for Research, of the technical coordination of the research website of the Ministry of
Economy and Knowledge, and of an electronic newsletter (RECERCAT). I am also
the person responsible, in conjunction with the Communication department of the
Secretariat, for the administration of the Directorate General for Research profiles
on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc.). In addition, I maintain a personal
blog (“L’ase quàntic” or “The quantum donkey“) where I write about innovation in
Public Administration, the use of social media in universities and research, the Open
Galaxy (Open Access, Open Science, Open Data, Open Courseware…) and the
issue of women in science, among others.
This article focuses on the use of social media by the units within the departments of
the Catalan Government (specifically the Secretariat for Universities and Research),
research centres, large research support infrastructures and the reference networks
in Catalonia. I would like to thank Professor Miquel Duran, from the University of
Girona, for his support in the preparation of data on the number of Twitter, Klout and
Kred followers of the organisations analyzed during the second week of October this
year.
A General Overview of the Catalan R&D System
The Catalan public R&D system is primarily composed of universities, research
centres, large research support infrastructures, hospitals, science and technology
parks, networks of reference and research groups.
The central topics in science policies applied in Catalonia in recent years are, on the
one hand, talent attraction and retention, with excellence and internationalization as
their benchmarks (a good example of this line of action is ICREA, Catalan Institution
for Research and Advanced Studies), and on the other hand, a sustained increase in
research funding, with the bulk of the spending allocated to research structures, both
research centres and large facilities (such as the Alba synchrotron light facility or the
MareNostrum supercomputer).
A good sign of the health status of the Catalan scientific system is that, if we consider
that the size of the population in Catalonia represents 1.5% of the EU-27, the system
has managed to attract 2.2% of the financing available from the European Union
Seventh Framework Programme, and has obtained 3.4% of European Research
Council (ERC) grants. Another relevant fact is that 2.9% of scientific publications in
the EU-27 have been written by Catalan researchers. You can find these data and
more information on the Catalan research system in the article by the Secretary for
Universities and Research of the Catalan Government, Antoni Castellà, published in
the issue 1 of the journal Global Scientia.

3. Institutional support
Three social media accounts are being managed from the Secretariat for Universities
and Research: the Directorate General for Research account (@recercat), the
Directorate General of Universities (@universitatscat) and the Secretariat for
Universities and Research (@coneixementcat).
The Twitter account of the Directorate General for Research is used to disseminate
the scholarships and research grants funded by the unit, as well as the publications
of the institution (for example, the most important news published in the newsletter
RECERCAT). It is also used to post news and updates from the web, to promote the
scientific dissemination activities from the unit and from the Recerca en acció
(Research in action) website, as well as events, awards, scholarships, publications
and other information from the system related agents. Apart from this public
information service, the Twitter account also serves to promote government action
(with links to press releases) and to share institutional statements from events or
interviews of policymakers.
The institutional account management of the Secretariat for Universities and
Research, as well as of other departments of the Catalan government, is based on
the Style and usage guide of the Government of Catalonia’s social networks,
produced by the General Directorate for Citizen Services and Publicity (GDCSP), at
the Ministry of the Presidency of the Government of Catalonia. This publication
establishes common guidelines for a consistent presence of the Government of
Catalonia on social networks and lists the different social media utilities, their various
uses, the purpose of each network, recommendations for an appropriate and
productive presence, and criteria for finding the best communicative style for each
tool.
One of the most important chapters in the guide is dedicated to metrics, an essential
tool to monitor the activity that is being done and to assess and measure the impact,
in this case, of the presence of the Administration in this environment and the
benefits it represents for citizens. Metric indicators are based on the following key
concepts:
 Dialogue: measures the degree of dialogue that the Government of Catalonia
maintains with citizens on different social networks.
 Reach: information on the distribution of the Government of Catalonia
contents to the people who are part of the social network.
 Action: indicates whether the content shared on the networks promotes
activity.
 Interaction: shows the global relationship between an account and its
audience.
 Acceptance (Applause): quantifies the degree of satisfaction.
For each of these key concepts, the indicators shown in Table 1 (List of indicators for
Twitter and Facebook) and Table 2 (List of indicators for YouTube, Flickr and
Slideshare) are used:

4. Concept Twitter Facebook
Audience
Followers Friends
Tweets sent Entries
Interactions
Mentions Comments
Retweets (RT) Shares
Clicks to links Likes
Interest
Dialogue Mentionts/tweets Comments/entries
Reach RT/tweets Shares/entries
Action Clicks to links/tweets
Applause Likes/entries
Interactions (Mentions+RT)/tweets (Comments+shares+likes)/entries
Commitment
Dialogue Mentions/followers Comments/friends
Reach RT/followers Shares/friends
Action Clicks to links/followers
Applause Likes/friends
Interactions (Mentions+RT)/followers (Comments+shares+likes)/friends
Table 1: List of indicators for Twitter and Facebook
Tool Indicator
Youtube
Total number of videos uploaded
Videos uploaded during the month
Number of views of all the videos uploaded
Visits to the channel
Subscribers
Flickr
Total number of photos published
Photos published during the month
Number of views of all the photos published
Slideshare
Total number of presentations and documents published
Presentations and documents published during one month
Number of downloads of all the presentations and documents published
Number of visits of all the presentations and documents published
Table 2: List of indicators for Youtube, Flickr and Slideshare
In order to facilitate a better interpretation of the metrics, the GDCSP prepares a
quarterly report that shows the evolution of these indicators graphically and sends it
to each of the units responsible for corporate social media accounts. These reports
help the units to evaluate the effectiveness of their activity on social media and to
consider whether the previously defined objectives are being achieved. In addition,

5. the information obtained can serve as a basis for predicting future actions and
planning campaigns. After all, assessment in the Administration must serve to identify
public policies that work, knowing the impact and to what extent it is attributable to
the intervention of Public Administration. Table 3 shows the number of Twitter,
Facebook and YouTube followers of the institutional accounts of the Universities and
Research areas in the Catalan Government, as well as the Klout and Kred reputation
indices:
Secretariat for Universities and Research accounts Twitter FB YT Klout Kred
Directorate General for Universities (@universitatscat) 3,300 859 52 718 5
Directorate General for Research (@recercat) 2,970 538 53 697 5
Secretariat for Universities and Research
(@coneixementcat)
1,467 49 656 4
Research in action (@RecercaenAccio) 1,438 87 49 616 3
Table 3: Social Analytics for Institutional Twitter Accounts of Secretariat for
Universities and Research of Catalan Government
The Twitter and Facebook accounts of the Universities area lead the classification
ahead of the Research accounts, probably because their target audience is
considerably larger. The Twitter account of the Knowledge area of the Ministry of
Economy and Knowledge of the Government of Catalonia ranks third, whereas the
account of the science dissemination website Research in action closes the
classification.
Research Centres in Catalonia: Increasingly Intensive Use of the Social Web
As regards research centres in Catalonia, it has to be mentioned that the CERCA
Institute is the Government of Catalonia’s technical service and its means for
supervising, supporting and facilitating the activities of the 47 research centres in the
CERCA system. These research centres are independent entities with their own
independent legal status, partially-financed by the Government of Catalonia (which
provides them with stable funding through programme contracts) and their main aim
is excellence in scientific research. They follow a private sector management model
that is totally flexible and based on multi-year activity programmes within the
framework of a strategic plan and ex-post supervision that respects the autonomy of
each centre.
The aim of this model is to encourage co-ordination and strategic co-operation
between centres, to improve the positioning, visibility and impact of the research
carried out and to facilitate communication between public and private agents. To
illustrate the efficiency of the system, out of the 60 ERC Starting Grants awarded in
Catalonia during the 2007-2012 period, 34 were awarded to researchers from the
CERCA centres (56%), whereas in the case of the ERC Advanced Grants, the
percentage rises to 63% (19 out of 30) for the 2008-2011 period.

6. Out of all the 47 CERCA centres, 25 use social media tools, primarily Twitter, as part
of their communication strategy. Table 4 summarises the most important indicators of
their presence on social media:
CERCA centres accounts Twitter Facebook YouTube Klout Kred
1
IJC – Josep Carreras Leukemia
Research Institute
2,344 44,758 245 50 730 3
2
i2CAT – Internet and Digital
Innovation in Catalonia
1,503 44 638 4
3
CTFC – Forest Technology Centre of
Catalonia
1,195 957 21 49 650 3
4
CREAF – Centre for Ecological
Research and Forestry Applications
1,191 51 681 5
5
IPHES – Catalan Institute for Human
Palaeoecology and Social Evolution
1,097 1,048 29 49 677 5
6
IGTP – Health Sciences Research
Institute of the Germans Trias i Pujol
Foundation
923 50 667 5
7
CRG – Centre for Genomic
Regulation
905 449 58 50 675 6
8
IDIBELL – Bellvitge Biomedical
Research Institute
777 234 3 52 685 5
9
IDIBAPS – August Pi i Sunyer
Biomedical Research Institute
772 185 43 597 2
10
ISGlobal-CRESIB-Barcelona Centre
for International Health Research
758 353 52 694 6
11
IMIM – Municipal Institute for Medical
Research Hospital del Mar
744 24 44 583 3
12
VHIR – Vall d’Hebron Research
Institute
734 301 62 47 644 3
13
ICCC – Catalan Institute of
Cardiovascular Sciences
617 217 39 595 4
14
ICIQ – Institute of Chemical Research
of Catalonia
499 428 12 45 600 4
15
IRB Barcelona – Institute for
Research in Biomedicine
295 448 13 43 576 3
16
IRSI-CAIXA – Institute for AIDS
Research
283 46 597 5
17
ICP – Catalan Institute of
Palaeontology Miquel Crusafont
258 2,683 20 42 545 3
18 CVC – Computer Vision Center 252 93 43 577 4
19 ICFO – Institute of Photonic Sciences 228 197 45 619 3
20 IMPPC – Institute of Predictive and 70 31 434 2

7. Personalized Cancer Medicine
21
IC3 – Catalan Climate Sciences
Institute
33 218 31 351 2
22
CTTC – Catalan Telecommunications
Technology Centre
29 12 1 25 344 1
23
CMR[B] – Centre of Regenerative
Medicine in Barcelona
21 21 52 0
24
IBEC – Institute for Bioengineering of
Catalonia
265 7
25
CReSA – Centre for Animal Health
Research
6
Table 4: Social Analytics for Institutional Twitter Accounts Provided by CERCA
centres
As for the number of Twitter followers, the Josep Carreras Foundation, on which the
Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute depends, leads the account
classification with 2.344 followers. At a certain distance, and above 1.000 followers,
we find the i2CAT Foundation (Internet and Digital Innovation in Catalonia), the
Forest Technology Centre of Catalonia and the Centre for Ecological Research and
Forestry Applications.
Regarding the José Carreras Foundation, which also tops the rankings on Facebook
(over 44.000 followers) and YouTube (with 245 subscribers), it should be noted that
the Foundation probably generates a very significant number of emotional
supporters, which may not occur in most other centres.
In the case of Facebook, 18 CERCA centres are present in this network. Apart from
the aforementioned first position, the second one goes to the Catalan Institute of
Palaeontology Miquel Crusafont, and the third is for the Catalan Institute for Human
Palaeoecology and Social Evolution, both of them with over 1000 followers.
About YouTube, the top channels in number of subscribers correspond to the Josep
Carreras Foundation, the Center for Genomic Regulation and the Vall d’Hebron
Research Institute. As we can see, there is a wide variety of fields of knowledge
regarding the top positions of the various social media.
As regards to reputation indices, the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute and the
Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal-CRESIB) lead the Klout ranking (Klout
52), and there are four centres over 50: the Centre for Ecological Research and
Forestry Applications, the Center for Genomic Regulation, the Health Sciences
Research Institute of the Germans Trias i Pujol Foundation, and the Josep Carreras
Leukaemia Research Institute. Interestingly, when analyzing the Kred index
substantial variations are not observed with respect to the centres that occupy the top
six ranking positions of the Klout index, except for the entry of the Catalan Institute of
Human Palaeoecology and Social Evolution into the Top 6, which moves the Health
Sciences Research Institute of the Germans Trias i Pujol Foundation up to the
seventh position.

8. Apart from the 47 CERCA centres, Catalonia has 21 centres from the Spanish
National Research Council (CSIC), which are public state-owned agencies. Among
these research centres, we wish to highlight the Artificial Intelligence Research
Institute (IIIA), with 369 followers on Twitter, the Institute of Materials Science of
Barcelona (ICMAB), with 306 followers, and the Institute of Robotics and Industrial
Computing (IRII), with 144 followers.
Large research support infrastructures
Large research support infrastructures require large investments for their construction
and maintenance, with the aim to advance cutting-edge experimental science.
Catalonia has basically two major infrastructures: the Alba synchrotron light facility at
the CELLS Consortium and the MareNostrum supercomputer at the Barcelona
Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS).
These major research support infrastructures in Catalan territory are mainly consortia
participated by the Government of Catalonia, the Spanish State and other
organizations that take a minority stake. Apart from the two major infrastructures
mentioned above, there are up to 10 other major research support infrastructures.
Only five out of these 12 structures are present on social media as shown in Table 5:
Catalan large infrastructures
accounts
Twitter Facebook YouTube Klout Kred
Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-
CNS)
385 236 11 45 597 4
Center for Scientific and Academic
Services of Catalonia (CESCA)
158 45 0 31 523 3
Ebre Observatory 99 137 38 494 2
National Centre for Genomic Analysis
(CNAG)
64 40 395 3
Montsec Observatory 940
Table 5: Social Analytics for Institutional Twitter Accounts Provided by Catalan Large
Infrastructures
The Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación
(BSC-CNS) ranks first in the number of Twitter followers, while the Montsec
Astronomical Observatory leads the Facebook network.
Reference networks of R&D and innovation
Reference networks of R&D and innovation consist of a series of groups from
different institutions that carry out research and innovation projects, and other
activities collaboratively. These groups have common goals and the networks aim at
promoting collaborative, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work, as well as the
optimization of infrastructure and R&D and innovation facilities in Catalonia. Four out
of the eight reference networks are present on Twitter, as shown in Table 6, with the

9. Reference Network of R&D and innovation on Theoretical and Computational
Chemistry leading the classification:
Catalan reference networks accounts Twitter Facebook Klout Kred
Reference Network of R&D&I on Theoretical and
Computational Chemistry (XRQTC)
117 35 516 4
Catalan Biotechnology Reference Network (XRB) 112 41 498 4
Reference Network of R&D&I on Aquaculture
(XRAq)
63 74 23 396 3
Reference Network of R&D&I on Food Technology
(XaRTA)
39 17 220 1
Table 6: Social Analytics for Institutional Twitter Accounts Provided by Catalan
Reference Networks
How Can We Measure the Reputation of a Research Network?
Is the number of Twitter followers a good indicator of the presence of an institution on
the net? In my blog, I regularly analyze the presence of research structures in
Catalonia on social media, based on the number of followers. I realized that this
indicator may not be a sufficiently complete indicator, so I decided to introduce also
the Klout and Kred indicators, in line with the analysis of Professor Miquel Duran, an
expert in analyzing metrics in universities of the Catalan-speaking territories, and
Brian Kelly, with his detailed analysis on the presence of the UK Russell Group
universities (note the latter also includes indicators such as Peerindex or Twitalyzer).
Both Klout and Kred provide complementary and useful information in order to
assess the impact of bidirectional communication.
Klout is a social networking service that measures influence using data points from
Twitter, such as the size of a person’s network, the content created and how other
people interact with that content. This analysis is also done on data taken from
Facebook, Google+, Linkedin, and other sites. Klout creates profiles on individuals
and assigns them scores ranging from 1 to 100. Despite being criticized because of
its opacity, this service has become quite popular and I believe it is a good
complement.
Another interesting measure of influence is Kred. Unlike Klout, Kred provides a fully
transparent view of the actions that compose any user’s score and it is the only
influence measure to openly publish its algorithm. Kred’s scoring system, which is
based on Twitter profiles, is composed of two scores: Influence measures a user’s
ability to inspire action from others like retweeting, replies or new follows and it is
scored on a 1000 point scale. Outreach reflects generosity in engaging with others
and helping them spread their message and it is scored on a 10 point scale.
Outreach score is cumulative and always increases, and it is measured on Twitter by
your retweets, replies and mentions of others.

10. The Importance of Being Present on Social Media
In late May 2012, I gave a presentation at the University of Barcelona on
dissemination using Web 2.0 (Com divulgar en el web 2.0 / Cómo divulgar en el web
2.0). The workshop aimed to provide tools and strategies for scientific knowledge
dissemination to researchers and other agents linked to R&D and innovation system,
so that they could be in a better position to spread the object of their research.
Although my remarks focused on the importance of having a blog and a Twitter
account to disseminate research, I finally mentioned other instruments that could
contribute to it such as repositories (Slideshare, YouTube, Flickr) or social networking
tools (ResearchGate, LinkedIn, Google+). During the talk it was mentioned that, while
Facebook has been considered a very suitable network for personal rather than
professional purposes, currently a trend has been detected among young people to
use this network to disseminate research. Therefore, it should be considered in future
studies.
Twitter and Facebook are the social networking tools where research structures in
Catalonia are mostly present, although with slightly different communication
strategies. The centres use these media mainly to disseminate research and, in
some cases, to make dissemination activities organized by the centre more widely
available and to engage with the public, even as a teaching support. Moreover, these
tools are often used to post vacancies at the institution. According to Raül Toran,
science writer at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), generally the
topics that are forwarded mostly are the ones related to cutting-edge research and
job vacancies at the institution.
Social media at the research centres are basically managed by the Communication
Departments at the same institution although in most centres, some researchers use
social media mostly for personal rather than professional activity. Cinta S. Bellmunt,
Head of Communication at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social
Evolution (IPHES) states that the researchers in the centre are aware of the value
and visibility that social networks provide to research, because quite often I have to
refer questions that arise in the group to them, so they realize there is movement,
interrelation. To follow up on the impact of the communication strategy of the centre,
tools such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck are used.
A good example of the impact of the dissemination activity of social media by the
centres is to be found in the increasing traffic to their websites, as well as an increase
in the number of job applications for possible vacancies. Inevitably, this
communication activity results in a continuous increase in the number of Twitter and
Facebook followers. As far as readers’ preferences is concerned, it is highly variable
and it depends on the centres: in the case of the IDIBELL, there is more interaction
via Twitter (direct messages, mentions, RT, etc.) than via Facebook (Likes or
comments), while in the case of IPHES the situation is reversed.
As regards privacy, there is growing awareness that knowledge must flow, but with
precaution in order not to affect the privacy of others, respecting authorship and
quoting the source of what is being communicated.

11. Open social network tools such as Diaspora or identi.ca, are still little known in
Catalonia. In contrast, a growing increase in Catalan researchers in the
ResearchGate network has been detected.
In summary, we could say that research structures in Catalonia are consolidating and
increasing their presence on social media, especially on Twitter and Facebook, which
has become part of their communication strategy, increasing visibility. To disseminate
the research that is being carried out and to approach society are the main goals. In
addition, communication units are progressively incorporating metrics tracking tools
designed to evaluate and measure the impact of the communication activity and its
benefits to the target audience. And good news is that research, often funded with
public money, engages with the whole of society.
This article was published in Brian Kelly’s UK Web Focus blog as a guest post (thank
you, Brian!) on 5th
November 2012, and built on previous posts on this blog which
had described use of social media in the UK higher education sector, including posts
on Social Analytics for Institutional Twitter Accounts Provided by the 24 Russell
Group Universities, Use of Facebook by Russell Group Universities and Links to
Social Media Sites on Russell Group University Home Pages. The post aimed to
provide a wider view on approaches to use of social media and evaluation of its
impact beyond the UK.
The post was also published in the run-up to the Spot-On London (SOLO12)
conference which included sessions on Assessing social media impact, Altmetrics
beyond the Numbers and Using Twitter as a Means of Effective Science
Engagement. The post was discussed in the workshop Assessing Social Media
Impact by Alan Cann (University of Leicester) (video of the workshop).
Link to Catalan translation of the post