Abstract

The Current Research Information System (CRIS) landscape is becoming increasingly complex. In the early days, CRIS systems were often seen as institutional assets, but by gradually realising the many benefits CRIS systems bring to the Research Management and Administration community for organising and supporting research in a more efficient manner, numerous stakeholders have now adopted more region-wide approaches to CRIS system operation. In fact, research information management practice often follows national frameworks, which in turn leads to the emergence of country-specific CRIS vendors and solutions. While it is still possible to provide a generic overview of the system solutions available, any international CRIS landscape description will often need to be fine-tuned for a specific geographic area. This trend may be even more acute in the area of research management and administration.

In February 2021 euroCRIS and EARMA organised a joint event on the overlap between research information management (RIM) and research management and administration (RMA). The former is the 'natural playground' for CRIS systems, but as discussed back then, RIM and RMA are actually a continuum in the research lifecycle and system solutions often cover areas from both domains.
A number of euroCRIS Board members have teamed up to try and deliver an analysis of the current CRIS landscape in Europe, with an emphasis on RMA areas like project management or responsible research and innovation. Each of the co-authors is an expert on a specific system operated at their institution. On top of that, their euroCRIS Board membership grants them an 'insider view' on how other systems are run in other venues.

A matrix of areas of activity within the research lifecycle will be designed – including but not limited to research funding calls, pre-award and post-award project management, research ethics, research output management, research impact, persistent identifiers, research data management, open science and research evaluation – that will allow the various system solutions to be mapped against them.

This activity is planned as an interactive session where a presentation of the current CRIS landscape may be followed by a discussion on case studies at specific institutions with the audience. The feedback received from the audience is in fact seen as a key input for the landscape analysis to become more accurate.