Research administration · Reference
What is research information management (RIM)?
Research information management (RIM) is the institutional practice of collecting, curating and using metadata about an organisation’s research — its people, projects, funding and outputs — to support reporting, assessment, discovery and strategic decision-making.
The step most authors miss
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RIM as a practice, not just a product
Where a CRIS is a system, research information management is the broader discipline that the system serves. RIM covers the policies that decide what information is captured, the workflows that keep it current, the data-quality and governance rules that keep it trustworthy, and the uses it is put to — internal reporting, national assessment returns, open-access compliance monitoring, researcher profiles and institutional strategy. A CRIS is usually the tool at the centre of a RIM programme, but the programme also involves librarians, research-office staff, IT, and the researchers who supply and check the data.
Good RIM treats research information as a managed institutional asset with an owner, a quality standard and a lifecycle — not as a by-product that each office re-collects for its own purposes.
The research information lifecycle
RIM follows research through its stages. At the funding stage it captures applications, awards and funder requirements. During a project it records personnel, partners, milestones and ethics or compliance approvals. As work is published it captures outputs, datasets, open-access status and contributor roles. At the reporting stage it aggregates all of this into funder reports, assessment submissions and management information. Because the same facts recur at every stage, the central promise of RIM — like CASRAI’s founding mission — is to capture each fact once and reuse it everywhere it is needed.
How RIM differs from a CRIS
The two terms are often used interchangeably, and a "RIM system" usually means the same kind of software as a CRIS. The useful distinction is one of scope: "CRIS" names the system, while "research information management" names the institutional capability — the people, policies, standards and governance around that system. An institution can buy a CRIS and still have weak RIM if the data is incomplete, out of date or ungoverned; conversely, mature RIM is what makes a CRIS trustworthy enough to drive high-stakes reporting.
Standards that make RIM interoperable
RIM depends on shared standards to be more than a local silo. Persistent identifiers (ORCID for people, ROR for organisations, DOIs for outputs) make records unambiguous and linkable; the CERIF data model gives the information a common structure for exchange; and contributor standards such as CRediT add granular, machine-readable detail about who did what. CASRAI’s contribution to this space — the Catalogue of Elements, now stewarded by euroCRIS, and CRediT, now an ANSI/NISO standard — is precisely the shared-definitions layer that lets one institution’s research information be understood, and reused, beyond its own walls.
Key facts
At a glance
- RIM is: the institutional practice of managing research information
- CRIS is: the system that usually sits at the centre of RIM
- Lifecycle: funding → project → outputs → reporting (capture once, reuse)
- People: research office, library, IT and researchers together
- Standards: ORCID, ROR, DOI, CERIF and CRediT for interoperability
- Goal: research information as a governed institutional asset
Common questions
FAQ
What is research information management?+
Research information management (RIM) is the institutional practice of collecting, curating and using structured metadata about an organisation’s research — people, projects, funding and outputs — to support reporting, assessment, discovery and strategy across the research lifecycle.
What is the difference between RIM and a CRIS?+
A CRIS is the system; RIM is the broader capability around it — the policies, governance, data quality and people that make the system useful. The terms overlap, and a "RIM system" usually means the same software as a CRIS, but RIM is the practice and CRIS is the tool.
What does the research information lifecycle cover?+
It follows research from the funding application, through the active project (personnel, partners, approvals), to outputs and datasets, and finally to reporting and assessment — with the aim of capturing each fact once and reusing it at every later stage.
Why does RIM need standards?+
Without shared standards, an institution’s research information stays a local silo. Persistent identifiers (ORCID, ROR, DOI), the CERIF data model and contributor standards like CRediT let records be linked, exchanged and understood beyond the institution that created them.
Who is responsible for research information management?+
RIM is a shared responsibility, typically involving the research office, the library, IT, and the researchers who supply and verify the data, with governance defining who owns data quality.
