Research Memory

Research Memory keeps your thinking after a project ends, so your next project starts smarter instead of starting cold.

A research project leaves behind far more than its published findings. It leaves the questions you never got to answer, the article ideas it spun off, the sources you gathered but never used, the hypotheses you abandoned, the datasets worth reusing, and the people, conferences and grants worth chasing. Today that knowledge usually evaporates when the project closes. Research Memory captures it as small curated items - both inside a project, and in a cross-project pool you can start a new project from.

Where to find it

• Per project: open a project, then go to its Memory page at /research/projects/{id}/memory.
• Across all projects: the Carry forward page at /research/memory/carry-forward gathers every open and carried-forward item from all of your projects.

Kinds of memory item

Each item has a kind so you can group and scan them quickly:

• Unresolved question - something this project raised but did not answer.
• Future article - a paper or chapter idea worth writing up later.
• Unused source - a source you found but did not draw on this time.
• Abandoned hypothesis - a line of thinking you set aside (and why).
• Reusable dataset - data worth carrying into the next project.
• Collaboration lead - a person or group worth working with.
• Conference - an event worth presenting at or attending.
• Grant opportunity - funding worth applying for.
• Other - anything else worth remembering.

Each item also has a status: Open, Carried forward, Done, or Dropped.

Curating items

On the project Memory page, use Add memory item to record one by hand. Give it a kind, a one-line title, optional notes (the context your future self will want), and an optional source reference. You can edit or delete items, and use the quick buttons to carry an item forward or mark it done.

Suggestions (accepting is the only automatic write)

The Memory page also shows suggestions drawn read-only from your project's Decision Log. Where the Decision Log records an unresolved question, a revised or abandoned hypothesis, or an exclusion, Research Memory offers it as a candidate to carry forward. These are read-only previews: nothing is saved until you press Accept into memory, and accepting copies the suggestion into your memory without ever changing the original Decision Log entry. A suggestion you have already accepted stops appearing.

Carry forward into a new project

The Carry forward page lists every open and carried-forward item across all your projects, grouped by kind, with the project each came from. When you start your next project, work down this list so nothing of value is lost. Use the Start new project from this link to begin a fresh project with these items in front of you.

Privacy and access

A project's memory is visible to the project owner, its collaborators and administrators. Editing is limited to the owner, editor-level collaborators and administrators. Your Carry forward pool only ever shows your own items.