CORDIS Archive
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CERIF as a key to EU innovation policy success The European Union's Innovation policy aims at improving and strengthening the generation and exploitation of current and new Research and Development (R&D) projects as well as technology transfer. To this end, access to information on current research activities throughout Europe is an essential requirement. New R&D ideas can emerge thanks to a pan-European approach for information sharing and exchange. There is thus a need for a convenient tool to spread relevant R&D information widely to encourage both innovation and new, improved R&D as well as wealth creation. CERIF (Common European Research Information Format) is this common language that fosters the diffusion of information across Europe. The EU Commission's recent Green Paper on Public Sector Information1 emphasises the importance of access for European citizens to publicly funded information and equally the opportunities for economic growth and employment that it provides. All Member States are taking initiatives with regards to public R&D information - some quicker then others. European Union policy should therefore aim to have all Member States arrive at the same point, and as quickly as possible. CERIF in addressing Public Sector R&D information is dealing with an area of economic activity with a high growth potential, and is crucial to the ongoing competitiveness of European industry. The raw R&D Information is held by funding agencies and other information providers throughout the EU amongst which are the so called Current Research Information Systems (CRIS). However, data is heterogeneous and unconnected. The potential for European-wide exchange is being under-exploited, although there is a need for accessibility to and comparability of data through a uniform query interface from various sources. The end-users need to be able to search, European-wide, for information on a particular research topic or theme. This "common interface" must not only address the content (what must be exchanged) but also the format of such information (how it should be presented). This information must be presented in a uniform way, at least at summary level. Classification should be consistent for all the research information sources. Subject indexing is required and a controlled terminology should have the same meaning in all languages. To this end, the Common European Research Information Format (CERIF) was proposed in 1991. However, the WWW (World Wide Web) and database technology offer new ways to provide this.
The first CERIF was published in 1991 with the aim of facilitating data exchange between CRIS (Current Research Information Systems). As a matter of fact, CERIF users are identified primarily as CRIS providers. CERIF 1991 contained a data model for describing "Research Projects", which included:
CERIF has not been revised since but research information providers are expressing a strong and urgent need for widening and updating the CERIF Format for the following reasons:
In 1997, the CERIF revision work was handed over by DG XII (the Research Directorate-general) to DG XIII-D (The Innovation Directorate), more specifically to the unit dealing with dissemination of scientific and technological knowledge. The CERIF Revision Working Group, composed of experts from Member States and associated countries, was proposed by the Innovation Programme Management Committee, and given the mandate for the CERIF revision activities. The CERIF revision led to this recommendation for "CERIF 2000" which has the following objectives:
Before defining the CERIF 2000 guidelines, the requirements of general users and particularly of CRIS users must be properly understood. Not all CRIS users have exactly the same requirements or interests. The CERIF Revision Working Group identified the following user groups:
The characteristics of these user groups and their particular needs are discussed in Chapter 3. These needs are not seen as being "stable" but evolving due to the influence of such factors as technology change and the shift in public policy from "research" to "innovation". CRIS providers are in turn responding with new features and techniques. Finally, having considered the different user groups and the evolution of their needs, a set of common user requirements is considered.
CERIF Revision Objectives and scope The CERIF Revision Working Group has experience related to broad exchange of information, know-how and CRIS. The following issues were addressed:
Derived from this analysis, the Working Group took a number of decisions regarding in particular:
CERIF 2000 will extend the original CERIF scope of "projects" to cover the following research information types:
For the management of these main types of research information, the CERIF 2000 data model also defines more specifically the data entities and their attributes.
CERIF 2000 must not only define the "ideal" for new CERIF conform to CRIS but it must also accommodate existing CRIS. The major design objectives for the CERIF 2000 data model are therefore to provide:
The approach in meeting the design objectives is threefold:
These models are defined in Chapter 5 and the annexes of this document.
Recommendation on Subject Indexing The Revision Group concluded that automatic indexing had made much progress in recent years. However, it is not yet a substitute for subject indexing and systematic appliance of uniform and controlled vocabulary when multi-lingual, multiple data sets from multiple sources are introduced. The existing CERIF recommendations on subject indexing covered only research areas. CERIF 2000 aims at widening the scope to include results, organisations etc. and will therefore recommend three different types of subject related indexing tools (classification schemes or thesauri) for indexing on:
The Revision Group also provided indexing guidelines for controlled attribute value lists for certain data elements. These guidelines and their rationale are described in Chapter 6 and the annexes of this document.
Conclusions for the use of CERIF 2000 The following are the recommendations for the use of the CERIF 2000 guidelines:
Once published the ongoing management of CERIF 2000 should be entrusted to Unit D4 of the European Commission's Directorate General XIII with the support of the ERGO Working Group. The Revision Group makes a number of recommendations on the future management of CERIF with regard to:
These are considered as key elements to the successful adoption of CERIF by the CRIS community.
Structure of the CERIF 2000 Report The CERIF 2000 report is structured as follows. The introduction sets the scene by explaining the importance of European R&D information and its role in European competitiveness. The role of CERIF in providing increased access to this information is explained. Chapter 2 gives the background to CERIF and describes what the first CERIF (1991) contained. The rationale for why a new CERIF 2000 is needed is then given. Chapter 3 discusses user requirements as a prerequisite before going on to discuss what the objectives and structure of the CERIF 2000 guidelines should be. Based on the user requirements, Chapter 4 goes on to define what the objectives for CERIF should be. This chapter includes discussion on the relevance of current technologies such as automatic indexing, cross-language information retrieval, and metadata to CERIF. With the objectives defined, Chapter 5 describes what the CERIF 2000 data model should be. The formal definition of the model is included as an annex. Some downloadable examples of the data model are available in a selection of Data Base management Systems via the CERIF Homepage /cerif/. Chapter 6 deals with the recommendations for subject indexing for the model. The main subject indexing tool, being the ORTELIUS Thesaurus, is documented in the CERIF Homepage. Chapter 7 presents the conclusions of the report. It also provides recommendations on how the CERIF 2000 guidelines should be used. It discusses different implementation scenarios. Chapter 8 focuses on the future of CERIF and in particular how it should be promoted and managed to ensure its success. The annexes include the list of the CERIF Revision Group members, the formal definition of the CERIF 2000 data model, details of the comparison of different classification schemes done by the Group, a glossary and a description of the ERGO project. |
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