Research administration · Reference
What is a CRIS (current research information system)?
A CRIS — a current research information system, also called a research information management system — is the institutional database that stores, links and reports an organisation’s research information: its projects, grants, publications, datasets, people and the relationships between them.
The step most authors miss
Doing CRediT right? Don’t stop at the statement.
A CRediT statement credits you inside one paper. The recognition CRediT was built for happens when those roles are tied to you, persistently. Sign in with your ORCID — free — and claim your CRediT contributions on casrai.org, the home of the standard. They become a verified, portable part of your identity, not a line that disappears into one PDF.
Free: claim your contributions, then export a journal-ready CRediT statement, schema.org structured data, JATS XML, CSV or BibTeX — and preview your public profile. A membership publishes that profile publicly and verifies the journals you serve.
What a CRIS does
A current research information system is the central record of an institution’s research. Rather than letting publication lists live in one system, grant records in another and researcher profiles in a third, a CRIS brings them together and models the relationships between them: this person was a co-investigator on that grant, which funded this project, which produced these outputs and these datasets. Once that graph exists, the same information can drive staff profile pages, internal reporting, funder returns and national research-assessment exercises without being re-keyed each time.
The phrase the field most often uses is "enter once, reuse many times". A CRIS exists to cut the administrative burden of researchers and research offices repeatedly supplying the same facts to different systems — which is precisely the problem that CASRAI was founded to address with shared, machine-readable definitions.
CERIF: the data model behind a CRIS
Many CRIS implementations are built on, or can exchange data using, CERIF — the Common European Research Information Format. CERIF is a standard data model for research information, maintained by euroCRIS, that defines the core entities (people, organisations, projects, funding, outputs) and, crucially, the typed relationships between them over time. Because CERIF is an interoperability standard rather than a single product, two institutions running different CRIS platforms can still exchange research information in a common structure. The CASRAI Catalogue of Elements is now stewarded by euroCRIS partly to enrich exactly this model.
CRIS platforms and vendors
The CRIS market includes both commercial and open-source systems. Widely adopted commercial platforms include Elsevier’s Pure, Clarivate’s Esploro and Converis, Symplectic Elements (part of Digital Science), and Worktribe, among others; DSpace-CRIS (built on the DSpace repository platform) and VIVO are prominent open-source options. Platforms differ in emphasis — some lead with the institutional repository, some with reporting and assessment, some with the researcher-profile and networking layer — but all share the same core job of being the institution’s authoritative research-information store.
How a CRIS connects to the wider standards stack
A CRIS is most valuable when it speaks the same language as the rest of the scholarly ecosystem. In practice that means ingesting persistent identifiers — ORCID iDs for people, ROR for organisations, DOIs for outputs and DataCite DOIs for datasets — and consuming structured contribution data such as CRediT roles deposited through Crossref. A CRIS that records CRediT roles against ORCID-identified researchers can report not just who authored what, but what each person actually did, which is a far richer signal for evaluation and a direct application of the standards CASRAI helped establish.
Key facts
At a glance
- Also called: research information management system (RIMS)
- Job: single authoritative store of an institution’s research information
- Data model: often CERIF (Common European Research Information Format), euroCRIS-maintained
- Platforms: Pure, Elements, Converis, Esploro, Worktribe; DSpace-CRIS, VIVO (open source)
- Connects: ORCID, ROR, DOI, DataCite and CRediT through standard metadata
- Principle: enter once, reuse many times — to cut administrative burden
Common questions
FAQ
What is a CRIS system?+
A CRIS — current research information system — is an institutional database that stores and links the metadata about an organisation’s research: its projects, grants, publications, datasets and people, and the relationships between them, so the information can be managed and reported from one authoritative source.
What is the difference between a CRIS and a repository?+
An institutional repository stores and provides access to the research outputs themselves (the full texts, datasets and files). A CRIS stores the structured metadata about all research activity — projects, funding, people and outputs — and the links between them. Many platforms combine both, but they answer different questions: "where is the file?" versus "what is the full picture of our research?".
What is CERIF?+
CERIF (the Common European Research Information Format) is a standard data model for research information, maintained by euroCRIS. It defines the core entities and the typed relationships between them, allowing different CRIS platforms to exchange research information in a common structure.
Which CRIS systems are most widely used?+
Commonly adopted commercial systems include Pure, Esploro, Converis, Symplectic Elements and Worktribe; widely used open-source options include DSpace-CRIS and VIVO. The right choice depends on whether an institution leads with repository, reporting or researcher-profile needs.
How does a CRIS use CRediT and ORCID?+
A CRIS can ingest ORCID iDs to identify researchers unambiguously and consume CRediT contributor roles deposited through Crossref, so it can report not only authorship but the specific role each person played — a richer basis for research assessment.
