Executive Summary
Government initiatives to increase transparency and accountability while cutting the cost of research funding have led to the replacement of the Research Assessment Exercise with the Research Excellence Framework and a series of projects and systems such the Research Councils UK Joint Electronic Submission Systems (JE-S). These in turn have led to institutions throughout the sector critically assessing the systems and processes which underpin Research Information Management.
Research suggests that only twenty-two percent of institutions have end-to-end ICT system coverage of the research life cycle (funding alert/grant application through to comprehensive listings of research outputs) and where systems do exist; the integration between them is very often weak or non-existent.
Seventy percent of institutions are planning to develop their RIM systems within the current financial year (2009/2010). Given the recent and continuing publicity about the REF it is not surprising that institutions cite it as the major tactical and strategic driver in their development of RIM systems. This is followed by the intention to provide a better service to end users (In this context an 'end user' could be a researcher, another institution or a member of the public.) The preoccupation with the REF in understandable but not completely justified; as was previously reported the main ICT requirement of the REF is to maintain an accurate and complete record of research outputs and eighty nine percent of institutions are addressing this by deploying Institutional Repositories or comprehensive output catalogues and sixty-nine percent of institutions are deploying both. A greater challenge is to provide systems that are fit for purpose, will support cost effective research management and will better support the emerging need to link research outputs to income streams.
Awareness of HEFCE, Research funding councils and JISC initiatives in this area is relatively low in institutions. While most institutions are aware of the operational Joint Electronic Submission Service (JE-S) far fewer are aware of the Research Outcomes Project which is intended to collect research outputs for a minimum of five years after the end of the project funding. Seventy nine percent of institutions are somewhat aware of the HEFCE funded project RMAS, which is intended to produce a standard template for research administration standards but only twenty nine percent are aware of the detail of the proposals. Enthusiasm for a common format for exchanging research data between institutions and agencies is very high but the awareness of CERIF (the European standard for research information exchange and the leading candidate for a UK standard) is very limited with only twelve percent on institutions being very aware of it.
As is to be expected in a sector as diverse as UK Higher Education there is no clear model for Research Information Management governance. The most common model is for RIM strategy to be defined by the university's Research Committee. However relatively few Research Committees have a budget for RIM development and securing funding for a development project is often a complex process involving a variety of senior managers and committees with differing priorities and authorities.
