Worldwide implementation of Current Research Information Systems (CRIS): a case study for Asia and China

Abstract

Since 2002 the Dutch non-profit euroCRIS has worked on Current Research Information Systems (CRIS, aka Research Information Management Systems or RIMS). This work started by defining the CERIFstandard (Common European Research Information Format), a conceptual data model for metadata storage and exchange describing all aspects of the institutional research activity. The adoption of CERIF by the European Commission was soon followed by the emergence of CRIS software platforms operated by institutional research offices to collect interlinked information on academic researchers, departments and faculties, research projects, research publications, data and other outputs (patents, software). These platforms – developed and distributed by vendors external to and independently from euroCRIS – have become particularly useful for the implementation of Open Science at an institutional level and also to derive business intelligence from the wealth of data stored in them regarding areas like co-authorships, collaborations with industry or research impact.

euroCRIS maintains the Directory of Research Information Systems (DRIS) with over 750 records for worldwide CRIS implementations and their distribution by country and software platforms. Regarding this latter aspect, while the Elsevier-provided PURE CRIS is the most popular commercial solution in the world, there are also plenty of open source software alternatives showing a growing adoption such as DSpace-CRIS or VIVO.

This presentation aims to examine CRIS implementation in Asia and specifically in China, where they're frequently called KMS or Knowledge Management Systems. While the research information management community around euroCRIS is largely based in Europe, CRIS adoption is a worlwide phenomenon (in fact the country currently topping the DRIS list of CRIS by country is India). We are aware that there are still significant gaps in the DRIS landscape and the presentation aims to establish the academic links that will allow the Chinese institutional KMS landscape to be more comprehensively described by the DRIS directory.