A Current Research Information System, commonly known as “CRIS”, is any informational tool dedicated to provide access to and disseminate research information. A CRIS consists of a data model describing objects of interest to R&D and a tool or set of tools to manage the data.
 

A CRIS aims at assisting the users in their recording, reporting and decision-making concerning the research process, whether they are developing programmes, allocating funding, assessing projects, executing projects, generating results, assessing results or transferring technology.
 

At institutional level it is a tool for policy making, evaluation of research based on outputs, documenting research activities and output and assistance in project planning and constitutes a formal log of research in progress. For the individual end users a CRIS is essential to evaluate opportunities for research funding, avoid duplication of research activity, analyse trends, have references/links to full text or multimedia scholarly publications, locate new contacts/networks and identify new markets for products of research. Typical forms of output are researcher CV, management information, reports to funders, research bibliography and commercial output reports.