Current Research Information Systems in Europe (and wider) for

Evaluation and Management

Prof Keith G JefferyPresident Emeritus

euroCRIS

CERIF

Opportunities and Trends

Structure

• Introduction to euroCRIS and CERIF• CERIF Features• CERIF for metrics• Conclusion

Rationale• Late 1960s: UNESCO/ICSU, Conference of Rectors of European

Universities recognised needs– Recording and interoperating research information

• Used for – Research management and administration

• CVs, bibliographies…• Finding collaborators (and competitors)• Assisting proposal writing• Research management decision support

– Evaluation• Scientometrics: output, outcome, impact

• Research is distributed nationally and internationally therefore need interoperation

Research institutions Research Funders InnovatorsMedia / Public

Before 2002• 1984-87 IDEAS Project• 1987-99 EXIRPTS Project• 1987-1990 EC Expert Group

CERIF91• 1991 First euroCRIS conference

Bergen• 1993-2000 euroCRIS conferences

supported by EC• 1995-2001 Platform Group

– Jostein Hauge, Marga van Meel • 1997-1999 EC Expert Group

CERIF2000• 2002- euroCRIS as a registered

not-for-profit organisation• 2002 EU requested euroCRIS to

maintain, develop and promote CERIF (as an EU recommendation to member states)

Membership

Starting in 2002 with around 20 delegates…

~300 members in 42 countries; all continents except Antarctica

Strategic Partners

formalising with LATTES

In 2002 – none! Now….

Seminar

• Nothing in 2002• Very successful series

starting 2003• Much participation by

European Commission• And of course strategic

partners• Has a real impact

Communications

• Website: nothing in 2002 – now (from 2011 annual report)

• Newsflash• Annual Report (since

2010)• Conferences – first one

under euroCRIS August 2002; 2012 largest and best ever

CERIF• 2002 basic EER data model

– Formal Syntax– User semantics

• Extensions– Facilities– Indicators

• Language variants• Semantic layer• XML version• LOD version• Federated IDs

CERIF

EU Recommendation to Member States

CRIS-IRIn 2002 CRIS and IR were different worlds.Progressive integration.Catalogue of IRs in euroCRIS DRISRecognition of value of CERIF as metadata for IROpenAIRE adopted CERIFCOAR strategic relationship

2011 Rome Declaration

LOD

• Popular way to browse / query data

• W3C• RDF• Metadata standards in

RDF– CKAN, eGMS, DC

• Some work on triplestores

• Generating from CERIF– Integrity– Consistency– View over CERIF

• Relates to ENGAGE • Relates to VIVO • Relates to PSI / e-Gov /

data.gov initiatives

Projects

• UK Projects– CRISPool, IRIOS, R4R, MICE,

Snowball, CERIFy, BRUCE, CIA, RMAS, RMAS-EE, IRIOS-2, UKRISS, C4D, REDIC, DESCRIBE, UniQuip

• UK Funder Projects– REF, GtR, ROS, EVAL

• EC Projects– ENGAGE– EuroRIs-Net– OpenAIREPlus

– Many national projects

• Provide– Exposure and PR– Funding– Technology– Know-how

2002 – no projects2008 – considered strategic2010 first successes UK, EC

Suppliers• Atira (now Elsevier)• Avedas• Symplectic• Other nationally-based

companies (e.g. CZ, SK)

• VIVO (US)

• Elsevier SCIVAL• Thomson Reuters RIV

• Commercial market has arisen since 2003

• Partly because of research evaluation

• Partly because of the desire to communicate the research of an institution

• Partly because of a desire to interoperate– Benchmarking– Administration (B2B)

Penetration of CERIF

• National standard in 10 European countries (UK, NO, BE, IT, DE, IS, DK, SE, CZ, SK);– Example systems: CRIStiN (NO); FRIS (BE)

• In use in (almost) all EU and EEA countries;• Used as standard for ERC system• Used as standard in MERIL (ESF) RI system• Adopted by OpenAIRE community

– Publication repositories, research evaluation for EC Framework Programmes

The Need

• Need for management of research information demonstrated by take-up

• Need for interoperation of research information– Benchmarking, evaluation, cooperation– Business-to-business between research

institutions, funders, innovators etc– Coherent ‘picture’ for government, public

Structure

• Introduction to euroCRIS and CERIF• CERIF Features• CERIF for metrics• Conclusion

The Users

• Research and Development Information– For the political decision-makers– For the funding organisations– For the entrepreneurs– For the researchers– For the research managers– For the innovators– For the media– For the general public

Project

Person / CV

Institution

Event

Equipment

Books

Journal/article

PatentResearch

Group

Publisher

Information of Interest

CERIF Model (EU Recommendation to Member States)

RESULT_PUBLICATION

PROJECT

ORGUNITPERSON

Result_Publication

Can Express:Person A (DT1 - DT2) (is author of) Publication XOrgunit O (DT1 - DT2) (is owner of IPR in) Publication XPerson A (DT1 - DT2) (is employee of ) Orgunit OPerson A (DT1 - DT2) (is project leader of) Project PPerson A (DT1-DT2) (is member of) Orgunit MPerson A (DT1-DT2) (is member of) Orgunit NOrgunit M (DT1-DT2) (is part of) Orgunit OOrgunit N (DT1-DT2) (is part of) Orgunit O

CERIF Expressiveness

Result_PublicationInstance Diagram

Person A

Publication X

OrgUnit O

OrgUnit M

OrgUnit N

Project P

member

member

employee

Part of

Part of

owns IPRauthor

Project leader

CERIF-CRIS related to other systems• CERIF-CRIS as the centre of the organisation

– Provides interlinking and interoperation WITHIN one organisation

– Repositories (bibliographic, datasets)– Organisational administrative systems (Finance,

HR…)– Web pages presentation (generate from CERIF-

CRIS)• CVs, bibliographies, project overviews….

– Directories and support of workflow

CERIF-CRIS in context

Publicationrepository

DatasetSoftwarerepository

Finance system

HumanResources

system

Project Management

system

CERIF-CRIS

Web pages DirectoryServices

CRIS + Repositories at 1 institution

CRISResearch Context

[projects, persons, organisational unitsfunding, products, patents, publications

facilities, equipment, events]

OA Repository(hypermedia) Documents

e-Research repositoryDatasets and Software

OAI-PMH

Various

protocols

End-User

CERIFCERIF

….and multiple institutions

CRIS

OA repository

e-Researchrepository

CRIS

OA repository

e-Researchrepository

CRIS

OA repository

e-Researchrepository

End-User End-User End-User

Institution A Institution B Institution C

The CERIF Solution

(including OpenAIRE)

Integration of Repositories• To view content in repositories through contextualised,

structured metadata – E.g. Relate publication to:

• Persons• Organisations• Projects• Funding• Facilities• Equipment• Event• Patent• Product

• Repository metadata DC (Dublin Core) insufficient• (as recognised by OpenAIREPlus when adopted CERIF)

Key Features• Developed by international community – consensus• Flexible and extensible• Separation of base and link entities

– Flexible / extensible– Rich semantics (role)– Temporal : it is the relationships that have duration

• Multi characterset• Multilingual• Formal Syntax

– Efficient, accurate computer processing• Declared Semantics

– Including crosswalks for interoperation

CERIF

Structure

• Introduction to euroCRIS and CERIF• CERIF Features• CERIF for metrics• Conclusion

CERIF-CRIS Being Useful• Researcher CVs• Bibliographies• Web pages (semantic web)• Improved scholarly publications• Improved research proposals• Finding collaborators• Finding reviewers• Current awareness of relevant research activity• Finding appropriate funding opportunities• Innovation (knowledge and technology transfer)

A CERIF-CRIS improves quality and reduces effort in daily work

But also….

• Evaluation and Benchmarking– By funding organisations justifying their spend– By research organisations demonstrating their

competence

• euroCRIS has an indicators Task Group– Bringing together the international teams (NL, DE, UK,

NO) including CASRAI, Elsevier and Thomson-Reuters– To develop better metrics

• Output, outcome, impact

MICE Project: CERIF Architecture

CERIF Indicators Segment

Physical data Structure Indicators

Structure

• Introduction to euroCRIS and CERIF• CERIF Features• CERIF for metrics• Conclusion

Conclusion• CERIF (Common European Research Information Format)

– mature standard, only one of its kind in the world– used widely in many countries and several EC projects– commercial products support it, demonstrated benefits– EU Recommendation to member states– maintained / developed / promoted by euroCRIS

• euroCRIS (European Current Research Information Systems)– association of research information management professionals

represents Europe and beyond– covers all aspects of research information management, incl. research

evaluation– significant strategic partnerships– has experience in projects– ready for a wide action and cooperation

CERIF