TWITTER HAS ANNOUNCED a new pilot project which will see a select number of academics and institutions gain free access to the company’s public and historical data.

The Data Grants scheme will allow the site to collaborate and help researchers who are tackling major issues and would benefit from analysing the millions of tweets posted daily.

The site, which sees more than 500 million tweets posted on it every day, has seen its data used for research in international relations, financial markets, natural disasters, journalism and politics. By providing access to this data, Twitter hopes that researchers can analyse and discover trends and developments through it.

Researchers will be able to collaborate with the site’s own researchers and engineers while Gnip, a social data company that Twitter is partnered with, will provide researchers with the necessary data. Any group that is interested in taking parts must submit proposals before 15 March.

Twitter announced its first earnings report last night after the company went public. It announced its monthly average users grew to 241 million, an increase of nine million from the previous quarter, but the slow growth in user numbers and a loss of $511 million saw its share price fall by 13 per cent.

Read: Twitter loses $511 million in one quarter >

Read: Twitter could soon let you buy goods directly from tweets >