By Claus Brink Mortensen, the VBN Team, Aalborg University Library
Illustration: Søren Emil Søe Degn, AAU

VBN began as a North Jutland pilot project in 1998 and has grown into a global system. The Pure platform behind VBN is now used by universities worldwide and provides data for both national and international collaborations.

At AAU, Pure is the backbone of research information: publications, projects, activities, press clippings, awards, impacts, and much more. The system also contains extensive registers of staff, partners, external researchers, AAU units, and academic publishers. Together, this creates a comprehensive, interconnected picture of AAU’s research—used for researcher profiles, merit documentation, reporting, and bibliometric analyses.

The more data, the better the insight. From 50.000 publications in 2009 to 100.000 in 2015—and now 200.000—the growth clearly demonstrates both the dedicated work of AAU’s researchers and how VBN has evolved from a local initiative into a cornerstone of AAU’s research infrastructure.

The effort pays off

VBN team leader Nils Thidemann speaks with pride about this milestone:

 - 200.000 publications is undoubtedly an impressive achievement, and equally remarkable is the diversity. VBN showcases a range of publication types, from articles to podcasts, patents, and interactive digital productions. This reflects AAU’s research across disciplines and formats, fully aligned with our CoARA commitments, he says.

In 2023, AAU joined CoARA and signed the EU’s Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment (ARRA), committing the university to a set of Open Science values. This is reflected in initiatives such as the AAU Research and Innovation Indicator and AAU OPEN, which brings together expertise and platforms for Open Access publishing. According to Nils Thidemann, these efforts are well worth it:

And the Winner Is… 

The publication that pushed AAU past the 200.000 mark was the journal article ‘Anticipation of pain during operant learning increases cognitive performance and feedback-related cortical potentials’ by Carolina Ceruti, Laura Petrini, Giulia Erica Aliotta, Dennis Boye Larsen, Elia Valentini (University of Essex), Kristian Hennings, Carina Graversen, and Carsten Dahl Mørch from the Department of Health Science and Technology.

The article examines the effect of pain and pain relief on brain responses and learning outcomes during problem-solving tasks.

The full article is published Open Access and can be read here. 

Looking back at some of its predecessors in VBN, one can only conclude that AAU researchers truly cover a wide range of topics. For example, AAU has published:

• 5 publications on the biochemistry of cheese
• 4 publications on queuing
• …and 1 article on the Moomins