What is the Social Science Research Network (SSRN)?
The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a website which aims to rapidly disseminate social science research and facilitate communication among researchers.
It maintains a repository or 'eLibrary' of research for 24 social science disciplines or ‘research networks’, including economics, literature, information systems, law, management and sustainability.
The eLibrary has two parts: an abstract database, and a full-text repository.
You can upload your own papers to SSRN (and then others can download them for free), or choose to upload only abstracts and citations.
SSRN encourages readers and authors to directly communicate with each other and discuss their research, and publishes detailed author contact information.
- SSRN eLibrarySocial Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of research and is composed of specialized research networks in many disciplines. The SSRN eLibrary consists of two parts: an Abstract Database containing abstracts of scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers; and an Electronic Paper Collection containing downloadable full text documents.
Why use SSRN?
You can use SSRN to:
- Share your research publications,
- Monitor analytics such as the number of downloads and citations for your documents, and
- Interact with other researchers in your field.
Full-text publications uploaded to SSRN are indexed by Google Scholar.
Your SSRN Author Home Page
SSRN provides an ‘Author Home Page’ for every author with publications indexed in the SSRN eLibrary.
You can access the home page for an author by clicking their name wherever it appears as a hyperlink in the SSRN system.
Each Author Home Page includes:
- Complete affiliation and contact information,
- A list of their abstracts and full text documents available in SSRN,
- Download counts for papers with full text documents, and
- Citation counts.
How to Update your SSRN Author Home Page
To create, update or correct your SSRN Author Home Page go to the SSRN User HeadQuarters (HQ).
SSRN User HQ accounts are free and you only need an email address and password to set one up.
SSRN's User HQ allows you to:
- Submit and manage your abstracts or papers,
- Manage your contact information, and
- Access features only available for registered users.
For more information see:
Considerations and Risks
Before you update your details on SSRN, or upload any publications you should consider the risks and issues involved, such as security, confidentiality and copyright:
SSRN Author Home Page Example
Screenshot of researcher's profile taken June 1 2021. Use of screenshot courtesy of SSRN.