GRIPS

About GRIPS

GRIPS (Geospatial Research Index of Pakistan Studies) is a free literature-discovery tool built for Pakistani GIS, remote sensing, earth & environmental science, geography, and space science researchers and students. Give it keywords and a year (or year range), and it pulls live results from open academic databases, no login, no paywall to search.

Cite GRIPS

GRIPS is free to use, and free to stay free depends partly on it being cited. If it helped your research, please cite it:

About GeoScape Analytics Lab (GSAL)

GRIPS is a project of GeoScape Analytics Lab (GSAL), an independent geospatial research lab based in Lahore, Pakistan. GSAL specializes in advanced geospatial technologies — applying GIS, remote sensing, artificial intelligence, and spatial data analytics to real-world challenges in environmental management, urban planning, agriculture, and climate.

Its mission is to bridge cutting-edge geotechnology with practical, on-the-ground applications that support sustainable development across Pakistan and South Asia. Learn more at geoscapeanalyticslab.github.io.

Data Sources

Results are merged and de-duplicated (by DOI first, then title) from multiple sources in real time: OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, CrossRef, and arXiv (preprints) always; plus Springer Nature (including Nature-family journals), CORE, Elsevier/ScienceDirect, IEEE Xplore, and NASA ADS (astronomy/astrophysics/planetary/space science) when their API keys are configured on the backend. Unpaywall is also checked for papers that aren't already flagged open access, to surface a free full-text link where one genuinely exists.

Google Scholar, JSTOR, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis don't offer a free public search API for this kind of app, so they can't be queried automatically. Use the cross-check links under the search box to open the same query directly on each of those sites.

All requests to these sources, and every API key they require, are made from the backend server, never from your browser, so keys stay private and rate limits are shared sensibly across everyone using the app.

Pakistan-only Scope & Accuracy

By default, GRIPS keeps a paper only if either of two things is true: (1) the paper's title, abstract, or journal actually names Pakistan or a Pakistani region, not just any paper matching your keyword, or (2) at least one author's institution is affiliated with Pakistan, per OpenAlex's affiliation data. Papers confirmed through affiliation data carry a "Verified PK author" badge; papers matched only through text carry a lighter "PK mention" badge, so you can judge confidence at a glance. Tick "Verified Pakistan-affiliated authors only" above the search box for the strictest possible filter.

Your search keyword is sent to every source as plain text, no quote-wrapping, no forced extra words, to get the widest possible set of candidates back. Every one of those candidates is then required to actually contain each of your topic's words in its own title/abstract/venue (not just something the upstream API's fuzzy ranking thought was "close enough"), so nothing off-topic survives regardless of how loose the initial search was.

Region names that Pakistan shares with other countries, "Punjab" (also an Indian state) and "Balochistan/Baluchestan" (also spans Iran), are treated carefully: a match on one of these alone is discarded if the same paper also names a different specific country (India, Iran, etc.) without any Pakistan-unique term to outweigh it. The same conflicting-country check applies to the institution-affiliation signal too, so a Pakistani-affiliated author's paper about a different country's case study won't get pulled in either.

Switch to Global scope (toggle above the search box) to search worldwide without any of this filtering.

"Reputed Journal" Badge

Papers published in a curated reference list of well-known, widely-indexed GIS/remote sensing journals (e.g. Remote Sensing of Environment, ISPRS Journal, IJRS, IEEE TGRS, GIScience & Remote Sensing) are marked with a badge.

Collections & Notes

Organize saved papers into custom collections (e.g. "Thesis Ch.3", "Literature Review") and attach personal notes to any bookmark. Saved locally for instant access, and mirrored to the backend under your Sync Code so they're recoverable on another device.

Sync Across Devices

Your bookmarks, notes, history, and reports are saved locally AND to the backend under a private Sync Code, no email or password needed. Copy your code to use on another device, or enter someone else's code (e.g. shared with your lab director) to pull their data down.

Privacy

Bookmarks, notes, collections, search history, and reports are saved in your browser's local storage AND mirrored to the backend under your private Sync Code, so they survive a cleared browser or a new device. Nobody without your Sync Code can read your data.