Advanced search
More advanced web surfers know how to use Some search tricks, to get good results, faster. CORDIS now brings the best of these together in a simple-to-use advanced search application. Learn more about this in our Advanced search basics or go straight to Get advanced results!
Advanced search basics
Sometimes you can save time by setting the search criteria before launching an advanced search using your key words. It is all about telling the computer what is most important to you so that it looks only in certain databases or parts of a database and delivers results — web page, news, document, project information, etc. — matching your needs much faster.
Example of the advanced search default or home page:
Get advanced results
With the advanced search tool you have more fields or windows for entering keywords. These tell the computer what to look for (or not look for) and whether to search for exact phrases or approximations. How much information you put into these windows really depends on how much you already know about the content you’re trying to find. Exact phrases or overly specific searches can lead to no results if you are guessing. You’re better off using the more general search options at the top (i.e. ‘with at least one of the words’). Advanced users might also try combined searches.
For example, entering “future and emerging technologies” into the first window (with at least one of the words) will give, say, 40,288 results ― too many to choose from!
Entering the same key words into the ‘with all the words’ option gives you 1,320 results ― already better!
Again 
your search and put the same search words into the ‘with the exact phrase’ and you get 392 results ― almost there!
Now try a 
keeping the same words in the exact phrase window, but this time add ‘FET’ into the ‘without the words’ field (because you know a bit about EU research and that FET is a specific research programme and you only want results focused on the words themselves) ― and, voila, you’re down to 52 results which are easily scanned page by page.
So you’re now an ‘advanced’ user of CORDIS search tools but you can get even better if you use the Advanced search tabs and/or Options and filters as well.
Other refinements: advanced search tabs
Including the default ‘Advanced search page’ that you land on, there are three tabs across the top of the main page: ‘Only projects’, ‘Only partners’, ‘FP7 calls’. Choose one and it tells the computer, from now on, to only search in that database. The look and feel of the page is the same for any other advanced search, but clicking on the ‘Only partners’ tab means your search terms will only be matched against the content in that database. See Sample searches.
Options and filters
These are neat little extras to nail down the search even more from the beginning.
What you see when you expand the 
Options will depend on which Advanced search tab you have chosen. This tool allows you to change a range of things about the type of search results you are likely to get and the way they are presented. For example, you can set the number of results you see per page to something other than the standard 10; you can decide whether to search in archived material or not, by certain types of document, languages, and it even gives you the chance to define what timeframe you want to search for results (i.e. any time, past 24 hours … up to 12 months).
What you see when you expand the Filter by will depend on which Advanced search tab you have chosen. It is generally for more experienced users, and for people who know more about European research activities and programmes. Examples of the filters include project acronyms, programme types and themes, project contract type/status/start-end dates, subject area, country, organisation, research interests, and more.
You can also extend your search outside the CORDIS domain simply by checking the Europa box:
Include also results from the EUROPA Website (http://europa.eu) Sample advanced searches
Here is a cutaway of the optimised results described in the Advanced search basics:
Example using the ‘exact phrase’ search criteria and excluding the acronym ‘FET’. You can select one of the 52 items offered over 6 pages or further refine the results using the options on the left (subject, document type, etc.), or you can modify the search using the button in the top panel, (i.e. go back to your original search page), or start again with a new search by clicking the respective button.
Here is a cutaway of the advanced search filtering tool with the main tabs across the top:
Filtering is a common database term which basically means the computer will disregard all the data/fields that are not relevant or interesting. In this example, you have chosen only to look in the ‘FP7 calls’ database by selecting that tab. You are only interested in the exact phrase ‘future and emerging technologies’ and you want the computer to look for open and closed calls for proposal, expressions of interest and tenders only in the FP7 cooperation theme.
Last updated on: 2012-06-07
