Adoption of CERIF in UK HEIs – report just published

Adoption of CERIF in Higher Education Institutions in the UK: A Landscape Study by Rosemary Russell of UKOLN ISC has just been published and is available in PDF and Word formats. The study documents the extent of adoption and engagement with CERIF in UK Higher Education institutions (HEIs) in late 2011/early 2012. 51 institutions in the UK are using CERIF Current Research Information Systems (CRIS), indicating a 30.7% adoption of CERIF. All institutions are using commercial CERIF CRIS with one exception. Since 2010, UK institutions procuring CRIS have demonstrated a clear trend to purchase Pure from Atira (based in Denmark), which now has 19 university installations (other systems being used are CONVERIS and Symplectic Elements).

However despite the widespread use of CERIF as an underlying standard, many institutions are not engaging with CERIF directly. Staff find CERIF complex and rely on external expertise from CRIS vendors and UK user groups; only institutions involved in JISC projects are properly engaging with CERIF. Many staff are keen to engage more – this is likely to happen as local CRIS implementations are completed and institutions are able to start exploiting the many efficiency benefits offered by CERIF.