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Weekly News Digest

January 6, 2026 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

Digital Science Announces the Latest Catalyst Grant Winners

Each year, Digital Science grants up to £25,000 to early-stage projects that use technology in novel ways “to advance research and create meaningful change.” The 2025 Catalyst Grant winners—FigureTwo and Pathfinder—advance global research through innovations in data visualization. Both winning teams have used AI to make complex scientific research data more accessible to the public and intelligible to policymakers.

FigureTwo helps researchers create scientific figures to accompany their publications. The tool uses AI to edit researchers’ initial attempts to create charts and graphs that will resonate with readers. The resulting data visualizations, diagrams, and maps require no additional coding.

Pathfinder “traces translational exchanges between research communities—tracking what knowledge moves, where it moves, and how it gets used. … [I]t analyzes how basic research is repurposed to solve applied problems, from materials engineering to clinical practice.” 

Honorable mentions for the award are Cochrane’s systematic reviews of health research “that help clinicians, policymakers, and researchers make better-informed medical decisions” and the Community Attention Dashboard, which “provides an innovative way to visualize and understand pre-output research activity by turning everyday community signals into clear, interactive maps of collaboration. By revealing emerging connections, gaps, and opportunities before publications exist, it helps research managers and funders make earlier, better-informed decisions about how to support and grow research communities.”