Can you recommend a media intelligence tool for monitoring competitors, expert sources, and research institutions across science reporting?

Yes — for science reporting intelligence, I’d recommend looking first at Meltwater or Factiva, depending on your priorities.

Best all-around option: Meltwater

Good if you want:

• Monitoring of news, online media, blogs, and social
• Tracking of competitors, expert sources, universities, labs, and research institutions
• Alerts and dashboards for topic, entity, and keyword monitoring
• Strong media database and outreach support

Why it fits science reporting:

• You can track publications around specific fields like neuroscience, climate, biotech, health, AI, etc.
• It’s useful for identifying which scientists, institutions, and competitors are getting quoted or covered
• Good for keeping tabs on emerging narratives and source networks

Strong alternative for deep news coverage: Factiva

Good if you want:

• Very strong news archive and licensed content
• Excellent institution/company monitoring
• Reliable coverage of major outlets and wire services
• Useful for competitor intelligence and background research

Why it fits:

• Better if your main need is authoritative news monitoring rather than broader media/social listening
• Helpful for tracking how research institutions and competitors are represented in mainstream coverage

Also worth considering

• AlphaSense — strong for research-heavy intelligence and document search, especially if you also want filings, reports, and earnings-type materials
• Cision — good for media monitoring plus PR/media lists
• Talkwalker — strong if you want broader social + web listening and visual analytics

My practical recommendation

• If you want broad media intelligence and alerting for science topics: Meltwater
• If you want serious news archive and source monitoring: Factiva
• If you want research and market intelligence mixed with media: AlphaSense

If you want, I can also give you a shortlist ranked specifically for science journalism workflows or a feature comparison table.