CRISalid Consortium: Toward an Innovative Information System for Scientific Research
Launched by Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and the University of Toulon in July 2023, the CRISalid consortium now brings together twelve higher education and research institutions, including the University of Montpellier, united around the project to design and implement software modules that make up a CRIS (Current Research Information System). The consortium agreement signed in December 2024 provides a structured framework for carrying out this project.
The community of interest formed around the CRISalid project is consistent with the core missions of public educational and/or research institutions, which include the dissemination and promotion of scientific and technical research findings.
Initially formed on an informal basis around the early research and experiments conducted by the University of Toulon (SoVisu), the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Expert Finder System), and the University of Paris-Saclay (BiblioLabs), the community gradually expanded between 2023 and 2024 and now comprises twelve institutions:
- School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences – EHESS
- ESCP Business School
- French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) ● National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Inalco)
- University of Nantes
- Sorbonne Nouvelle
- Claude Bernard University of Lyon 1
- University of Montpellier
- University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
- Paris-Saclay University
- Hauts-de-France University of Technology
- University of Toulon
The CRISalid consortium aims to develop, through a collaborative and agile approach, a CRIS—that is, a shared, open-source research information system. It will consist of software modules dedicated to managing and tracking information related to research activities, with the goal of simplifying the daily work of female faculty members, Professors, researchers, and support staff by streamlining the flow of research information and leveraging artificial intelligence tools.
Ultimately, CRISALID will enable:
- to help researchers better document, disseminate, and promote their work;
- to promote the visibility of research activities at various levels, from the research unit to the institution;
- to improve the reliability of data and indicators for institutional governance and institutional research stakeholders.
Issues related to data quality and the sharing of data among various research stakeholders are central to CRISalid’s objectives. This data will be consolidated into an institutional knowledge graph, incorporating information on researchers, the organizations where they work, their scientific output, and more.
This knowledge graph will be used to power public portals, websites, and research management tools. CRISALID will thus contribute to the functioning of the open research and science ecosystem, while respecting the stakeholders involved, in accordance with the principles and commitments of the European COARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment) coalition, which promotes the quality and impact of research.
The SoVisu+ module, currently under development, will, for example, offer a set of features that enable researchers to improve the quality of their research citations and, as a result, share their work more effectively.
The application modules developed by CRISalid as open-source software will be made available free of charge to the entire scientific and academic community.
Beyond creating new tools, CRISalid will build an open community of experts, driven by a spirit of mutual support and enthusiasm for shared innovation.