research information management

Research information refers to administrative information about research projects, researchers, research outputs, funding, and so on. Universities need to manage information about the research they host, in order to inform strategic decisions about that research, to ease reporting to external stakeholders such as funding councils and research funders, and to offer useful services to those within and beyond the institution's boundaries. There is a lot of work at the moment in this area in the UK, complementing that in other countries. In both the Netherlands and Denmark, for example, universities use a common system to document core information about research (METIS and PURE respectively). Both of these systems are based around the CERIF data model, as are other systems in use such as Converis and the publications-oriented system Symplectic and national systems such as HunCRIS (in Hungary) and SICRIS (in Slovenia). In the UK, JISC, HEFCE, the Research Councils and others are funding a range of work to help the sector better manage information about research, covering institutional infrastructure (joining up institutional systems), national infrastructure (building services and interoperability to share research information), as well as providing guidance, support and opportunities to share experiences and work together. (Excerpt from this source)