The UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has commissioned a new report, according to which, establishing a common data standard for managing research information in the UK could save the higher education sector millions of pounds.
Research information - administrative information about researchers, projects, outputs and funding that arises from the research process - is currently said to be fragmented and often stored in incompatible formats. It can be spread across different systems, in university departments such as finance and human resources, in institutional repositories or with external bodies such as research funders or the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
The new JISC report found that using a common data model as a basis for exchanging this kind of information will, along with other benefits, significantly reduce the costs associated with information interchange - between 25 percent and 30 percent - following the adoption of the Common European Research Information Format (CERIF) as the basis for exchanging research information across the sector.
The issue is seen becoming a priority for universities as they need to have their systems talk to each other internally, collaborate more effectively and submit more and different information to funders. Institutions spend around £85 million each year submitting and monitoring grant applications to research councils and the RAE 2008 Accountability Review reported a sector cost of £47 million or £1,127 per researcher submitted.
Over the past two years, the Research Information Management Group is said to have emerged as the primary UK co-ordinating body in this area. It is convened by JISC and has members from organisations representing a wide range of higher education professionals. These include senior managers, research managers, directors of information and computing services, librarians, knowledge transfer professionals and technical developers, as well as funders such as HEFCE, the Research Councils and the Wellcome Trust.
The group agreed in January 2010 to promote a UK wide research information management data standard. Following on from this JISC commissioned a business case which is claimed to show compelling evidence for the UK research sector to accept CERIF as the basis for exchanging research information in the UK. But JISC requested that evidence be collated on the costs and benefits of adoption. The latest results are seen to show a compelling case for the adoption of such a standard.
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