Generate SDGs for Assets Using AI

April 2026 Management

This release introduces Esploro’s first AI-powered capability built on the Clarivate Academic AI Platform. You can now automatically generate UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for sets of up to 500 assets at a time. SDGs are an effective way of demonstrating the impact of your research output. The workflow includes two stages , the first stage allowing operators to review, approve, reject, or modify the suggested SDGs, and the second for updating assets in bulk.

A new menu option is available under: Repository > Manage Assets > AI Generated SDGs for Assets.

The process supports two operations for the two stages:

1. Generate SDGs and Report

In this mode, Esploro sends selected asset metadata—title, publication title, keywords, research topics, and descriptions (such as abstract or table of contents)—to the Academic AI Platform, which returns SDG suggestions.
 

The generated SDGs are added to a CSV report for operator review. The CSV file can be downloaded from the job report as explained below.

Parameters

• Select set of assets - Choose a predefined set (maximum 500 assets).
• Is an asset description mandatory? (Yes/No) - When descriptions are included, the AI model receives richer context and produces higher precision suggestions. If set to Yes (default), only assets with a description will be processed.
• Add SDGs - Choose whether SDGs should be added only when the asset currently has none (default) or also when SDGs already exist. Duplicate SDGs are never added.

After the job completes, you can access the job report via Monitor Jobs, where you will find counters, events, and a link to download the SDG report.

Report Columns
The SDG report includes only assets for which SDGs were generated, and contains:

• Asset ID (mandatory for updates)
• Asset type
• Title
• Publication title
• Keywords
• Research topics
• Description
• Generated SDGs (mandatory for updates)
• Update Asset with SDGs – enter x or X to confirm updates (mandatory for updates)

Operators may adjust the SDGs in the file — remove or add values as needed.

2. Update Assets with SDGs

In this mode, the reviewed CSV report is uploaded and processed.
 

The only parameter is the input report file.

The job validates the file and records events for all updated assets. Validation includes:

• Missing mandatory columns (Asset ID, Generated SDGs, Update Assets with SDGs)
• Assets with no Asset ID
• Assets with no SDGs
• Assets with no confirmation (x or X)
• Invalid Asset IDs (non‑numeric values)
• Invalid SDGs
• Duplicate Asset IDs
• Asset IDs not found in Esploro

Researchers can now deposit Media Mentions through their Profile (CERV)

April 2026 Portal & Profiles

Researchers can now deposit Media Mentions (MMs) through their profile using the “Add Content” feature. MMs are typically press releases, interviews or other media activities about the researcher. MMs can be configured to display in the Media tab of a researcher’s profile.  

To enable researchers to deposit MMs, the “include add media mentions” flag in Configuration > Portal & profiles > Header/footer must be checked.

You can configure if deposited Media Mentions [SB1] require admin approval or not. This is controlled by a flag in Configuration > Portal & profiles > Researcher profile settings.

If set to require approval, then when a researcher submits a MM it triggers an admin task in the Research Information Hub. If not set to require approval, then the researcher can choose if the MM should display publicly using the “make public” icon in the MM deposit form.

Before a MM is made public, it will be displayed as a draft.  There are two new sub-tabs in the Researcher Profile Media Tab – one for displaying draft records and the other for displaying records that are in process. The in-process tab is only visible when the configuration is defined to require admin approval of the MM.

Once the MM is approved, researchers with active notifications get an email informing them that the MM was approved.  A MM will only display publicly after it is approved.

The researcher notification letter is called Researcher Entity Deposit Approved Letter and it can be turned on or off and configured in Esploro Letters Configuration manager.

Field added to the Asset File to store accessibility information

April 2026 Management

To help institutions comply with new institutional and national accessibility policies concerning file accessibility, two new fields were added to the Asset file metadata, one to store the file accessibility status, and the other to store accessibility comments. The file accessibility field is a management field and is available for input, display and retrieval in the Research Information Hub. The field is not public.

The file accessibility status comes from a closed list of statuses; this list can be configured in the table Configuration > Repository > File accessibility.

The file accessibility status is indexed and can be used to search for records that need their files updated.

You can decide if the file accessibility field should be required or not. If it is required, you will be prompted to fill it in whenever a file record is edited.

In May, file accessibility fields will be available for input by researchers as part of both Researcher deposit and Add file to an existing record.

robots.txt can now be Updated

April 2026 Management

Institutions can now update robots.txt and block bots and crawlers (that respect robots.txt) from access to the Research Portal and public Researcher Profiles. The robots.txt file is updated via a new code table – Esploro Disallowed Bots. The mapping table is a list of the bots to block. There is a suggested list of common bots an institution may want to block; the list is disabled by default. 

To activate the functionality:

1.      Enable the customer parameter esploro_partial_disallow_crawlers (Configuration > General > Institution Settings).  Set the value to “true.”

2.      Activate and/or add bots to the Esploro Disallowed Bots code table (Configuration > General > General Settings > Robots.txt Configuration). 

Secondary Sort for Organizational Units

April 2026 Portal & Profiles

Customers can choose to have their Organizational Units sort alphabetically or by the sort order field. For customers that use the sort order field, Organizational Units are now sorted using a primary and secondary sort. Units with a defined sort order appear at the top of the list, ordered by that value. All remaining Organizational Units without a sort order are displayed alphabetically at the bottom of the list.

Previously, Organizational Units without a sort order were displayed in a random order at the bottom of the list.

Include Bibliographic Citation in the Asset API

April 2026 Integrations

The Get Asset API was improved and now in addition to individual metadata fields in the asset schema, the response includes a full bibliographic citation in the style of your choice. Two new parameters were added to the API to support this feature, one for choosing the citation format and the other for choosing if the citation is sent with HTML formatting or as a simple string.  A sample URL looks like this: user_primary_id=exl_impl&limit=10&citation_style=apa-cv&citation_format=html

More information is available on the developers network.

Retrieve Assets from ORCID can be run with the ORCID Public API

April 2026 Integrations 

The existing job to retrieve assets from a Researcher’s ORCID profile can now be run by customers who have the ORCID public API set up. For more information about setting up your ORCID public API credentials see: ORCID in Esploro.

Ongoing Update from OpenAlex  CERV

March 2026 Management

OpenAlex provides information on Open Access status as well as Open Access links sourced from Unpaywall. When assets are imported into the system, Esploro can use the OpenAlex API to optionally retrieve Open Access–related details. To ensure greater accuracy over time, Esploro now supports ongoing updates from OpenAlex. These updates are important in cases such as:

• The asset was created manually or imported through a workflow that did not use OpenAlex.
• The record was imported before OpenAlex had information about it.
• The Open Access status has changed. This may occur, for example, when a Green Open Access link is added or updated, though other scenarios or errors can also lead to changes.

The following configuration options are available:

Once activated in the Research Jobs Configuration, the new job will run daily. The first execution is retrospective and will include all assets that have a DOI, excluding institutional DOIs and internal ETDs. Because of the volume, the initial processing may require several runs to complete. Subsequent updates occur on the following schedule:

• Records without an Open Access status (blank or Unknown): checked weekly
• Records with Closed or Green Open Access: checked every 3 months
• Records with Diamond, Gold, Hybrid, or Bronze Open Access: checked every 6 months
• Records with a publication date older than five years: not checked

The job report lists all assets that were updated during the run.

Both the last update date from OpenAlex and the next expected update date appear in the asset form. If the asset is no longer scheduled for updates, the message “No planned updates” is displayed.

To give operators more control, two row actions are available when the job is active:

• Add asset to “Update from OpenAlex” job – Includes the asset in the next job run.
• Remove asset from “Update from OpenAlex” job – Excludes the asset from the next job run.

Mapping to ORCID Work Type can now be based on Asset type and subtype (CERV)

March 2026 Management

The mapping from Esploro assets to ORCID Work Types can now include the asset subtype, enabling a more precise and accurate alignment with ORCID Work Types.
This mapping is configured in the Esploro Asset Type to ORCID Work Type mapping table (Configuration > Repository > Integrations > ORCID Work Type).

The mapping table now contains three columns:

• Esploro Asset Type
• ORCID Work Type
• Esploro Asset Subtype – sourced from the controlled list of asset subtypes
  (Configuration > Repository > Asset Details > Esploro Subtypes).

The out‑of‑the‑box mappings can be adjusted as needed by customizing this table.

Update Set of Researchers with Data from ORCID

March 2026 Management

The new ad-hoc job that pulls unique identifiers from researchers’ ORCID profiles and updates their Esploro profiles can now be used with the ORCID Public API. Add your public API client ID and client secret to the configuration table Configuration > repository > ORCID Public API. When using the ORCID Public API the system will only have access to data that is flagged as public. With the member API it is possible for Researchers to grant read and write access to non-public data. For more information about entering your credentials for the ORCID Public API please see: ORCID in Esploro.

Query by Researcher Primary ID

March 2026 Integrations

A new Query by Researcher Primary ID was added to the GET Activities, GET Projects, GET Media Mentions and GET Grants APIs, enabling efficient retrieval of all entities associated with a specific researcher.  A single API call per-endpoint reduces the need for multiple queries, improves performance, and simplifies data synchronization across systems. For more information see API documentation in the Developers Network.

Map Multi-lingual Researcher Profile Data to Analytics 

March 2026 Analytics

All multi‑lingual researcher profile data elements are now fully mapped to the Esploro Researchers subject area. A new dimension has been introduced for several of these elements , enabling institutions to use structured fields rather than relying on concatenated lists of values. This enhancement provides cleaner, more flexible reporting—also for institutions that do not actively maintain multi‑lingual researcher profiles.

The table below outlines how each multi‑lingual data element has been incorporated into the Researcher subject area.

Additional Enhancements