Elsevier Launches LeapSpace: an AI-Assisted Workspace to Accelerate Research and Discovery

Elsevier, a global leader in advanced information and decision support in science and healthcare, introduces LeapSpace™, a next-generation AI-assisted workspace built to transform how academic and corporate scientists work. Designed for speed, collaboration, and discovery, LeapSpace empowers academic and corporate researchers to uncover deeper insights, accelerate innovation, and collaborate seamlessly - in one secure environment they can trust.

84% of researchers say they have used AI tools in their work¹ but only 22% trust existing tools². Designed with thousands of researchers, LeapSpace builds on the success of ScienceDirect AI and Scopus AI, bringing together the broadest collection of peer-reviewed scientific content and responsible AI. It includes innovative Trust Cards, a foundational capability which provides context and transparency into every result, supporting critical thinking and helping researchers calibrate the strength of the evidence.

“LeapSpace enables researchers to move from curiosity to discovery without leaving trusted ground,” said Judy Verses, President, Academic and Government, Elsevier. “By combining an unparalleled body of peer-reviewed research with responsible AI, we’re supporting the research community to build on the strongest foundations of trusted knowledge to advance human progress.”

A trusted foundation for scientific progress

Unlike general-purpose AI tools that typically rely on unverified web data, LeapSpace draws only from the world’s most trusted scientific content. It already includes the largest collection of research abstracts as well as millions of peer-reviewed full-text articles and books from Elsevier and other leading scientific publishers and societies, which will continually expand. Our vision is to enable researchers to build on the strongest foundations of trusted knowledge, harnessing the power of responsible AI, to advance progress.

A growing content set that already includes:

• The world's largest collection of research abstracts, as well as data and analytics, from Scopus, Elsevier’s publisher-neutral database of 100+ million records from7,000+ global publishers.

• 15+ million peer-reviewed full-text articles and book content from Elsevier and other scientific publishers and societies.

An independent Advisory Board will oversee LeapSpace’s transparency, ensuring its algorithms remain explainable and publisher-neutral.

Purpose-Built for Researchers

LeapSpace is designed specifically for researchers to help them carry out multiple tasks in one secure environment so they can achieve better outcomes, faster, with confidence.

Key features include:

• One seamless assistant: Generate ideas, plan projects, explore literature, find collaborators, and identify funding — all with a powerful AI that analyzes abstracts and full text to deliver structured, referenced answers.

• Comprehensive trusted content: A certified and curated dataset of millions of peer-reviewed full text articles, books, and the world’s largest database of research abstracts from top academic publishers and societies.

• Trust Cards: Every AI-generated insight includes a ‘Trust Card’ designed to give researchers confidence to make informed decisions - showing sources, an explanation for why a source was cited, surfacing contradictions and helping researchers to calibrate the strength of the evidence.

• Deep Research: Agentic AI delivers detailed reports, highlights emerging patterns, assumptions and limitations, and evidence gaps.

• Upload your own content: Users can also upload their own material to enrich analysis.

• Integrated funding discovery: Access 45,000 active and recurring grants worth over $100 billion, drawn from Elsevier’s Funding Institutional database.

• Efficiency tools: Features such as Reading Assistant, Compare, and Author Search help researchers rapidly evaluate evidence and identify collaborators.

Privacy and security: Built with enterprise-grade security, Elsevier ensures responsible AI use and data privacy in its AI solutions, in line with its Privacy Principles.

Advanced AI, Grounded in Human Expertise

LeapSpace combines agentic AI, generative AI, reasoning engines, and retrieval-augmented generation to support a wide range of research workflows — from literature analysis to hypothesis generation and data exploration. Every feature reflects Elsevier’s Responsible AI Principles, emphasizing transparency, explainability, and human oversight. Researchers have full visibility into how results are generated.

Developed with the Research Community

Thousands of researchers from 300+ institutions in 64 countries participated in the development and testing of LeapSpace. Early users report that it saves significant time, improves research design, uncovers missed insights and deepens analysis — becoming a daily starting point for key tasks across the researcher workflow.

Cara O’Neill MD, FAAP, Chief Science Officer, Cure Sanfilippo Foundation, said: “Rare disease research is limited by the small number of experts focused on each disease, Sanfilippo syndrome being no exception. We rely on connections and learnings across multiple disciplines to bridge gaps in direct evidence. Synthesizing vast amounts of often disparate information is a challenge. In my early experience with LeapSpace, I've been impressed with how it's able to address these challenges while providing confidence in the accuracy and rigor of its outputs.”

Availability

LeapSpace is available today for institutions to preview – to learn more, visit here. Existing and new ScienceDirect AI customers will be automatically upgraded to LeapSpace when it becomes commercially available in Q1 2026.

Notes to Editors

¹, ² The Researcher of the Future Report (2025): https://www.elsevier.com/insights/confidence-in-research/researcher-of-the-future.

關於 Elsevier

身為科學資訊與分析的全球領導者，Elsevier 協助研究人員與醫療照護專業人員推動科學發展，改善醫療成果，造福社會。我們以可信賴、以實證為基礎的內容和先進的 AI 數位技術為基礎，透過創新的解決方案促進洞察力和關鍵決策。

140 多年來，我們一直為研究和醫療保健界的工作提供支援。我們全球 9,500 名員工，包括 2,300 名技術人員，致力於支援研究人員、圖書館館長、學術領袖、資金提供者、政府、研發密集型公司、醫生、護士、未來醫療保健專業人員和教育工作者的重要工作。我們的 2,900 種科學期刊和經典參考工具書包括其領域中最重要的書籍，包括 Cell Press、The Lancet 和 Gray's Anatomy。 我們與愛思唯爾基金會 (Elsevier Foundation) 合作，與我們服務的社群攜手合作，在發展中國家和世界各地的科學、研究和醫療保健領域推動包容性和多樣性。 Elsevier 是 RELX 的一部分，RELX 是一家為專業和商業客戶提供以資訊為基礎的分析和決策工具的全球供應商。有關我們的工作、數位解決方案和內容的更多資訊，請造訪 www.elsevier.com 。