Last September, we released QuestPair beta containing functionalities for businesses to post cases to which scientific experts can apply with ideas and proposals. After negotiations, businesses can decide which scientific expert to hire for a project or to start a collaboration. Since our launch, hundreds of companies and experts have registered and the first projects have started. Following testing and your feedback, we have continually pushed small updates and bug fixes. We would like to thank everybody who has contributed with bug reports and useful suggestions.
QuestPair 1.1
Today we have released QuestPair v1.1. We have added multiple new tools to make it easier for companies to find experts and for organisations to let their experts engage with businesses and start projects. What’s new?
- Financial officers that are registered on QuestPair can manage financial information for scientific experts working within their organisations. As such, experts working in organisations do not have to complete payment information themselves but can leave this to their financial officers.
- Clients can directly invite experts to their cases.
- Experts can share cases that they found with other experts on QuestPair.
- Improved user interaction and functionalities.
Financial officers
It is now possible to sign up as a financial officer and provide financial details for your group, department, university or research institute. After setting up an account, financial officers can enable experts to route payments on QuestPair to their account. In this way, the financial information for each organisation only needs to be completed and verified once, after which the funds for projects on QuestPair smoothly arrive at the correct destination without any need of the experts to complete any financial details themselves.
Future improvements
We will continue to develop QuestPair so that companies can find and hire the best scientific and technology experts for consultancy and contract research projects. We realise that there is much work to be done, and many suggestions from feedback and user testing are yet to be incorporated. Our aim is to create a platform where scientific experts and engineers – working as freelance consultants or researchers in a university or other organisation – are empowered to engage directly with commercial problems so they can use their skills and expertise the way they want. Please don’t hesitate to continue sharing your opinion, and keep on eye on our Twitter updates. We hope you will enjoy QuestPair 1.1!
