Research management: Research information management
The UK spends more than £6 billion on research in the Higher Education sector each year across a wide range of disciplines, research practices and institutions. Managing activities this diverse and widespread imposes a significant burden on funders, institutions and researchers - even simply matching up who received what grant at which institution with the published papers that resulted. Even a small efficiency saving could lead to real financial benefits.
Research information includes information about bids, funding, projects and researchers themselves. At present, there are many systems holding research information in a range of formats and using different standards. In order to make managing, merging and sharing this information easier, JISC is funding a range of projects to help research organisations make much better use of the information they currently hold and to capture new information, such as evidence of research impact.
Work is focusing on:
- establishing the use of a recognised standard to describe research information, the Common European Research Information Format (CERIF;
The second round of RIM projects demonstrated the power and potential of CERIF. The third round of projects will, by the end of 2012, show the scale of efficiency savings and provide new systems and software to help ROs make those savings.
- creating standardised ways of describing research activities, so the information collected will be authoritative and accurate;
Also by the end of 2012, projects will have developed the basis for a national service infrastructure to help make reporting research information easier, will have provided guidance on standards and tools to make research information ‘work harder’ and reduce duplication of effort and strengthened the evidence base for research impact. These shared services will enable, for instance, common reference to names for researchers, organisations and so on.
- Drawing together stakeholders from across the sector to ensure that key developments, such as unique identifiers for researchers, meet their needs and have their support.
Longer term aims for the strand include building on international partnerships to enhance the UK’s position as a research powerhouse and to keep our infrastructure and systems at the cutting edge; building services and tie-ins with other projects, such as the RCUK Research Outcomes System or the Research Management and Administration System (RMAS) to ensure that all ROs, irrespective of size have access to state of the art research information management systems.