Research Information Management: Making Sense of it All

Presentation to Boston Library Consortium Workshop, Boston, Nov 2015

 

The creation of an authoritative institutional data source requires a thorough understanding of the subject area, the adoption of effective processes, strong stakeholder communication and a comprehensive appreciation of available sources of supporting data.

Faced with growing competition for future funding and increased calls to both disseminate and demonstrate the impact resulting from research activity carried out by their researchers, many research intensive institutions are now implementing Research Information Management Systems (RIMs) to help collate the often fragmented sets of data maintained across an institution and to blend these with external data sources in a bid to reduce the administrative burden historically associated with capturing and managing data about an institution’s research activity.

In this session, the presenter will reflect on the emergence of research information management systems, their key functions, the types of data they can capture; the intersection of RIMs with other institutional systems (e.g. Institutional Repositories and Profile Systems) and the resulting benefit afforded to institutions that deploy institution-wide RIM systems.

Based on both his own experience of implementing a RIM at Imperial College London and having worked with many other leading research institutions whilst at Symplectic, the presenter will also discuss how research libraries and librarians are often uniquely placed to promote and support the adoption of RIMs by Faculty and how they also often go on to play a more central role in the planning of future institutional research information data collection.