In CRIS terminology, an entity representing a specific award or funding instance — its funder, award number, amount, currency, start and end dates, and the project and people it supports — distinct from the abstract Funder organisation and from the project itself.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 10 Jul 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
A specific Wellcome Trust award recorded in a CRIS with its Wellcome Funder ID, award reference, amount, duration, and linked PI.
Is an instance
An ERC Starting Grant recorded as a funding entity linked to its host project and to the Funder ID for the ERC.

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
The funder organisation itself (NSF, ERC) is not a funding entity — it is the Funder.
Not an instance
A line item in a finance system for a single invoice is not a funding entity in CRIS terms.

Editorial commentary

Funding-entity modelling distinguishes ‘the funder’ (a Funder organisation such as NSF) from ‘the funding’ (a particular award instance — e.g. NSF grant 1234567 to PI X for $500,000 from 2023-2026). In CERIF this is the cfFund / cfFunding linking entity; in Pure it is an Award; in Elements it is a Grant. Linking the Funding entity to a Crossref Funder Registry identifier for the Funder and to a project identifier (RAiD or local) gives the joinable data needed for funder reporting.

References

euroCRIS, 'CERIF Funding model' (eurocris.org/cerif).

Also known as

Award · Grant (CRIS)

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Funding entity"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/funding-entity" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/funding-entity",
  "name": "Funding entity",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/funding-entity",
  "description": "In CRIS terminology, an entity representing a specific award or funding instance — its funder, award number, amount, currency, start and end dates, and the project and people it supports — distinct from the abstract Funder organisation and from the project itself.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/research-info-systems#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/funding-entity",
  "sameAs": [
    "Award",
    "Grant (CRIS)"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-07-10T02:06:20",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

Referenced across the research world

View CASRAI adoption →