IS VaVaI (Informační systém výzkumu, vývoje a inovací — the Information System of Research, Development and Innovation) is the Czech Republic’s national database of publicly funded research activity. Established under Act No. 130/2002 Coll., on the Support of Research, Experimental Development and Innovation, it is the single system Czech research organizations use to report projects, funding programs, and research results to the state, and the system Czech research funders and evaluators draw on when deciding what gets funded and how institutions are assessed. Within IS VaVaI, the component most research administrators actually work with day to day is RIV (Rejstřík informací o výsledcích — the Registry of Information on Results), the register of research outputs. This guide explains what IS VaVaI and RIV are, how they are governed, and how RIV data feeds into national research evaluation and funding decisions.
What Is IS VaVaI?
IS VaVaI is operated as a central, publicly accessible database (at isvavai.cz) that aggregates data submitted by individual research organizations, funding providers, and government bodies across the Czech Republic. It is not a single monolithic database but a set of interlinked registers, each covering a different part of the research lifecycle:
- CEP (Centrální evidence projektů) — the Central Register of state-supported R&D&I projects, tracking projects from proposal through completion.
- RIV (Rejstřík informací o výsledcích) — the Register of Information on Results, covering publications, patents, and other outputs arising from that funded research (see below).
- CEZ (Centrální evidence záměrů) — the register of institutional research plans/intentions of publicly funded research organizations.
- VES (Veřejné soutěže ve výzkumu, vývoji a inovacích) — the central register of public tenders (calls for proposals) through which targeted R&D&I support is allocated.
Together, these registers give the Czech state — and, for most non-sensitive data, the public — a searchable record of who received public research funding, what they proposed to do with it, and what they produced as a result. For a research administrator at a Czech university, institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, or other publicly funded research organization, IS VaVaI is the mandatory reporting channel for this information, comparable in function to a national CRIS (current research information system) operated at country scale rather than by a single institution.
RIV: The Results Registry Within IS VaVaI
RIV is the component of IS VaVaI that research administrators interact with most directly, because it is where a research organization records the outputs — research outputs in CRIS terminology — produced under publicly funded projects and institutional research plans. A RIV record for a given result (a journal article, monograph, patent, certified methodology, software, or one of the other result types the system recognizes) captures bibliographic/descriptive metadata, links back to the funding project(s) and institution(s) responsible, and a field classification used later in evaluation.
Two features of RIV matter specifically for how it is used downstream:
- Only results entered into RIV are eligible to be counted in the national evaluation of research organizations. A publication that exists but was never submitted to RIV effectively does not exist for evaluation purposes — which is why RIV submission is treated as a compliance obligation by research offices, not an optional archiving step.
- RIV records are linked to CEP project records and to the submitting organization, so a result’s provenance (which grant, which institution, which field classification) is traceable — the same linking logic a CRIS uses to connect a research output to a project and a person or organizational affiliation.
An older, narrower predecessor register, CEP’s results counterpart, is sometimes referenced in older Czech-language literature as distinct from RIV; in current practice RIV is the single results register within IS VaVaI and the one research offices should treat as authoritative.
Governance: The Research, Development and Innovation Council
IS VaVaI is governed under the authority of the Research, Development and Innovation Council (Rada pro výzkum, vývoj a inovace, commonly abbreviated RVVI), an advisory and coordinating body to the Czech government operating under the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic. Act No. 130/2002 Coll. gives the Council responsibility for national R&D&I policy coordination, methodological oversight of how results and organizations are evaluated, and formal input into how the state’s overall research budget is allocated across ministries and funding agencies. Day-to-day technical operation and hosting of the IS VaVaI database is carried out on the Council’s behalf; policy and methodology decisions — including the evaluation methodology described below — are the Council’s.
This structure is a useful contrast for anyone used to institution-level CRIS governance: rather than an individual university’s research office setting its own local rules for what counts as a reportable output, RIV’s field classifications, result-type definitions, and evaluation weightings are set centrally and apply uniformly to every publicly funded Czech research organization submitting data.
How RIV Data Feeds National Research Evaluation
RIV’s practical importance comes from its role as the evidentiary base for the Czech national evaluation of research organizations, currently conducted under a methodology commonly known as Metodika 17+ (approved in 2017, and still the operative framework as of this writing). Metodika 17+ deliberately moved away from a purely quantitative, points-per-output counting model toward a smaller, field-differentiated, largely qualitative peer-review process — but it still depends on RIV as the source pool: only results actually recorded in RIV, classified by field (FORD/dFORD field codes), can be selected for evaluation. Evaluators assess a limited, representative sample of an institution’s submitted results (rather than every output an institution produced) against two main criteria: contribution to knowledge (originality, significance, and difficulty, weighted especially for basic research) and societal relevance (the result’s real-world use or impact).
Because Metodika 17+ evaluation outcomes feed into how institutional (non-project) research funding is allocated in subsequent years, accurate and timely RIV submission is not a bureaucratic afterthought for a Czech research office — it is a direct input into the institution’s future funding position. This is broadly analogous to how other national research-assessment exercises (for example the UK’s REF or Australia’s ERA) rely on an underlying institutional or national data infrastructure, though the specific mechanics, evaluation unit, and funding formula differ by country.
Who Uses IS VaVaI and RIV
- Research organizations (universities, Academy of Sciences institutes, and other publicly funded research bodies) — submit CEP project data and RIV result records, typically through a research office or grants office function analogous to a CRIS administrator role elsewhere.
- Funding providers and ministries — use CEP and VES data to track what they have funded and to administer public tenders.
- The Research, Development and Innovation Council and evaluation panels — draw on RIV for the Metodika 17+ evaluation exercise described above.
- The public and researchers elsewhere — IS VaVaI’s public search interface exposes most non-sensitive project and result metadata, making it usable as an open discovery tool for Czech-funded research, similar in spirit to how euroCRIS‘s member directory of national CRIS systems supports discovery across countries.
IS VaVaI/RIV in Context: How It Compares to Institutional and International CRIS Infrastructure
IS VaVaI is best understood as a national-level, state-mandated CRIS rather than an institutional one. Most of the CRIS platforms research administrators encounter elsewhere on this site — commercial systems like Pure or Converis, or open-source options like DSpace-CRIS and VIVO — are deployed by a single university or research institution to manage its own researcher profiles, projects, and outputs, often for internal reporting and public researcher-profile pages. IS VaVaI instead sits above that layer: it is the country-wide reporting destination that individual Czech institutions’ internal systems (whether a commercial CRIS, a custom-built research office database, or a spreadsheet-based process) must ultimately feed into, in the specific format Act No. 130/2002 Coll. and RIV’s data structures require.
This two-tier pattern — institutional research-information systems feeding a national aggregator used for funding and evaluation — is not unique to the Czech Republic; other countries operate comparable national research-information infrastructures, and the interoperability challenges involved (aligning local data models with a national reporting schema) are part of why CERIF, the data model maintained by euroCRIS, exists as a common reference point for the field. IS VaVaI predates and operates independently of CERIF as a national legal-reporting system, so research administrators should not assume CERIF-compliance or direct interoperability with CERIF-based institutional CRIS platforms without checking the current technical documentation on isvavai.cz for the specific data-exchange format required.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does RIV stand for?
RIV stands for Rejstřík informací o výsledcích — the Registry (or Register) of Information on Results. It is the component of IS VaVaI where Czech research organizations record publications, patents, and other outputs of publicly funded research.
What is the difference between IS VaVaI and RIV?
IS VaVaI is the overall national information system, made up of several linked registers. RIV is one of those registers — specifically the one covering research results/outputs. Other IS VaVaI components include CEP (projects), CEZ (institutional research plans), and VES (public tenders).
Who governs IS VaVaI?
The Research, Development and Innovation Council (Rada pro výzkum, vývoj a inovace, RVVI), a body operating under the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic, holds policy and methodological authority over IS VaVaI under Act No. 130/2002 Coll.
Why does RIV submission matter for research funding?
Only results actually recorded in RIV are eligible to be selected for the national evaluation of research organizations (currently conducted under Metodika 17+), and evaluation outcomes influence how institutional research funding is allocated in later years. Incomplete or late RIV submission can directly affect an institution’s evaluated performance.
Is IS VaVaI the same as a CRIS?
IS VaVaI functions like a CRIS but operates at the national rather than institutional level — it is a government-mandated aggregator that individual Czech research organizations’ own systems must report into, rather than a system any single institution deploys to manage its own researcher and output data.
Can the public search IS VaVaI and RIV data?
Yes. IS VaVaI provides a public search interface at isvavai.cz for most non-sensitive project (CEP) and result (RIV) metadata, allowing anyone to look up publicly funded Czech research projects and their reported outputs.
