In today’s competitive funding landscape, the difference between getting noticed and getting passed over is often visibility. Research offices and grant support teams play a critical role in helping scholars secure resources—but there’s another piece of infrastructure that’s often overlooked: the research website.

Once considered a “nice-to-have,” a professional, current, and well-structured research website is now a strategic asset. It supports funding success, research development, recruitment, and public engagement. In short, it’s not just a communications tool—it’s part of your institutional research infrastructure.

Visibility Drives Opportunity

Funders, partners, and potential collaborators often encounter your research for the first time online. If your website is outdated, incomplete, or buried within a departmental listing, you may be missing opportunities before they even reach your inbox.

A strong research site:

• Demonstrates readiness and professionalism
• Helps funders quickly understand your work and capacity
• Increases the reach and discoverability of your research output
• Creates a living record of progress, impact, and collaboration

Web Presence Complements Grant Support Services

Most institutions invest in grant offices, proposal development staff, and research administrators. These are essential services—but they can’t stand alone. A research website reinforces these efforts by making your lab or center’s work accessible and understandable to external audiences, including funding agencies.

For example:

• A grant office helps you write a compelling proposal
• Your website shows that your research program is real, active, and visible
• Together, they build a more fundable profile

What Counts as a Strategic Research Website?

Not all websites are equal. To serve as strategic infrastructure, your research site should:

• Be searchable and well-organized
• Showcase publications, projects, team members, and collaborators
• Demonstrate current activity, with updates, events, and recent work
• Highlight funding sources and outcomes
• Be accessible, responsive, and aligned with institutional branding
• Be easy to update, so faculty and staff can manage it without specialized help

Platforms like OpenScholar are designed to meet these needs at scale—without requiring custom development or technical knowledge.

AI-Driven Funding Matches Start with Your Website

As search technology increasingly incorporates AI, staying visible depends on keeping your website up to date. AI tools look for signals of activity and relevance, and a site with recent publications, news, and updates is far more likely to appear in tailored search results.

OpenScholar is developing an AI-driven matching tool that analyzes website content to connect researchers with the most relevant funding opportunities. The more current your site, the more effectively it can surface grants and partnerships to support your work.

Simply put: fresh, accurate content increases your chances of being discovered—and matched—with funding in an AI-driven research ecosystem.

The Institutional Case for Investing in Web Infrastructure

Treating research websites as part of your institution’s strategic toolkit can lead to:

• Better funding outcomes
• Stronger faculty support
• Increased interdisciplinary collaboration
• Improved public engagement and policy reach
• A more unified and discoverable research ecosystem

By providing faculty, labs, and centers with sustainable tools for managing their digital presence, institutions can extend the value of their research development and communications investments.

The Bottom Line

In the age of competitive funding, a research website is not just a digital brochure—it’s infrastructure. It supports funding pipelines, signals credibility, and connects research to real-world impact.

Institutions that invest in scalable, researcher-friendly web platforms position themselves—and their faculty—for greater success.

Want to see how OpenScholar supports digital infrastructure for research? Learn more or get in touch to explore scalable solutions for research visibility.