CRIS

CRIS

Current Research Information System: an enterprise-class software system that aggregates, stores, and publishes information about a research organisation's activities — its researchers, publications, projects, funding, equipment, collaborations, and outputs — and exposes that information to internal management and external reporting consumers.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 21 May 2026

A CRIS is the system of record for an institution’s research activity. Typical CRIS functions include: ingesting publication data from Scopus, Web of Science, Crossref, and PubMed; harvesting from institutional repositories via OAI-PMH; receiving award notifications from funder systems; managing researcher CV pages; producing reports for national assessment exercises (REF, ERA, BRA, etc.); and exposing data through public researcher and unit portals. Commercial CRIS products include Pure (Elsevier), Elements (Symplectic, part of Digital Science), Converis (Clarivate); open-source equivalents include VIVO and DSpace-CRIS.

References

e
u
r
o
C
R
I
S
,
‘
W
h
a
t
i
s
a
C
R
I
S
?
‘
(
e
u
r
o
c
r
i
s
.
o
r
g
)
.
d
e
C
a
s
t
r
o
P
.
,
S
h
e
a
r
e
r
K
.
,
‘
T
h
e
c
u
r
r
e
n
t
s
t
a
t
e
o
f
C
R
I
S
s
y
s
t
e
m
s
‘
(
C
O
A
R
/
e
u
r
o
C
R
I
S
j
o
i
n
t
r
e
p
o
r
t
,
2
0
2
0
)
.

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="CRIS"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/cris" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "name": "CRIS",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/cris",
  "description": "Current Research Information System: an enterprise-class software system that aggregates, stores, and publishes information about a research organisation's activities — its researchers, publications, projects, funding, equipment, collaborations, and outputs — and exposes that information to internal management and external reporting consumers.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/research-information-systems-and-integration/",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/cris",
  "sameAs": [
    "Current Research Information System",
    "Research Information System"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}

Worked examples

Looks similar, but isn't

References

Use in your systems