Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A 'RIM team' inside a university library managing the Pure deployment, the publications harvest, and the national submission.
- Is an instance
A national RIM landscape report comparing how different countries organise their CRIS deployments and reporting workflows.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A standalone library catalogue is not RIM.
- Not an instance
A finance team's grant accounting is not RIM, though it integrates with RIM.
Editorial commentary
Research Information Management (RIM) is the institutional function of managing structured data about an institution’s research activity — publications, grants, projects, personnel, equipment, and outputs — across its full lifecycle. A CRIS (Current Research Information System) is the software system most institutions rely on to carry out that function, but RIM as a practice is broader than any one system: it also covers data governance policy, business processes (publication-harvesting workflows, researcher CV update cycles, national-assessment submission preparation such as REF or ERA), integrations with HR and finance systems, stakeholder reporting, and bibliometric services layered on top of whatever platform is deployed.
Function vs. system: why the distinction is made explicit
In everyday usage the two terms are frequently used loosely and interchangeably — a librarian might refer to ‘the RIM system’ where a euroCRIS document would say ‘the CRIS’. CASRAI keeps the distinction because the OCLC Research report that popularised the term frames it explicitly this way: RIM is the institutional practice and the library’s (or research office’s) role within it, of which a CRIS deployment is one enabling technology among several, not a synonym for the whole practice.
Worked example
A university’s RIM programme typically includes its CRIS platform (for example Pure or Elements), a defined publication-harvesting workflow pulling from Scopus, Web of Science, and Crossref, a documented REF-submission preparation process, and a data-sharing agreement governing what HR and finance data feeds the researcher-profile layer. Calling the CRIS product alone ‘the RIM’ collapses that distinction: the product is one component the programme depends on, not the programme itself.
Landscape and practice
The Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) and OCLC have both published landscape studies of RIM practice across countries, documenting how institutions organise the RIM function — typically split across library, research office, and IT stakeholders — and how CRIS platforms interoperate with institutional repositories rather than replacing them.
References
- Bryant R., Clements A. et al., ‘Research Information Management: Defining RIM and the Library’s Role’ (OCLC Research, 2017).
- de Castro P., Shearer K., ‘The current state of CRIS systems’ (COAR/euroCRIS joint report, 2020).
Also known as
Research Information Management
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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