About Bifrost®

Background

Bifrost® began as an internal tool at Karlstad University for producing fast, reproducible overviews of research publications. Over time it has grown to combine several data sources, enrich publications with citation data and quality markers (NPI, SJR), and produce shareable HTML reports. More than 150 reports are currently publicly available at bifrost.kau.se, the oldest dating from early 2025.

The name 'Bifrost' refers to the bridge of Norse mythology, the bridge between Midgard and Asgard. The rainbow. The Bifrost tool makes bibliometric information accessible: it gathers and compiles data in order to present it in an easily understood form. 'Bifrost' is also a Swedish acronym, bibliometri för rapp och synlig tolkning ('bibliometrics for quick and clear interpretation').

Developer

Bifrost® is developed by Kristian Niemi, senior lecturer at Karlstad University. New analysis modules, data sources and presentation formats are added on an ongoing basis.

Data sources

Bifrost® combines three publication databases: SwePub, DiVA and OpenAlex. The choice of source depends on the question being analysed. See Data sources for a detailed account of what each source contributes and its limitations, and Method for metrics and concepts.

Technology and licence

Bifrost® is written in R and uses, among other things, R Markdown for report generation, plotly and visNetwork for interactive visualisations, and DataTables for exportable tables.

The code is distributed under the MIT licence; a public code repository is planned. The name Bifrost and the logotype are registered trademarks.

Contact

Kristian Niemi <kristian.niemi@kau.se>