Connecting Science with Society: The Role of Research Information in a Knowledge-Based Society

CRIS2010, the 10th conference in the bi-annual series organized by euroCRIS, focuses on the connecting role of Current Research Information Systems (CRIS). Aalborg, Denmark where CRIS2010 is held, is located near the intersection of the Northern Sea and Kattegat, a place were not only the waters of two seas are exchanged, but also goods and culture. In a similar way, Current Research Information Systems are at the intersection between (publicly funded) research and society. They do not only connect actors, activities and results within the research domain but also play a crucial role in raising awareness of the important questions of our society reflected in scientific research and of the answers produced by these research activities.

The CRIS2010 conference, entitled “Bringing Science to Society”, therefore seeks to highlight the role of Current Research Information Systems for communicating research outcomes to the relevant stakeholders in society as a whole. Researchers, research managers, policy makers and Chief Information Officers, to name just a view, are not the only groups which value the richness of research data a CRIS provides for planning, managing and evaluating research, for driving innovation or for disseminating results to the scientific community and beyond. And, as a look at the CRIS2010 conference program will tell, there are many more, often little known purposes for which CRIS are used. These applications stimulate with their demands the progress in designing, building and maintaining CRIS – and their creative use: From establishing scientific systems at a national level to supporting researchers in their dialog with a critical and aware society.