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Semantic interoperability (SI) is at the heart of the FAIR principles and the design of large-scale cross-disciplinary infrastructures. The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is a European-wide effort towards such an infrastructure, aiming to deepen regional research collaboration and realising a shared data space for science, research and innovation. In this context, the research community’s voice is represented by the EOSC Association (EOSC-A) and a number of advisory groups with a broad range of representatives from different stakeholder organisations. The advisory group on metadata and data quality has formed a task force focusing on developing and implementing recommendations for SI (EOSC SI Task Force) to converge on globally relevant and scalable SI solutions for EOSC. This paper provides context to SI in EOSC, the various components contributing to it, as well as some views on the socio-technical challenges to arriving at a consensus. In particular, the paper provides motivation for exploring the heterogeneity of SI solutions demonstrated across scientific communities and insight into the task force’s planned approach to conducting a survey to identify relevant components and structures. The paper is also an invitation to the global community to align and engage with the task force’s activities going forward., This research is a product of the Task Force "Semantic Interoperability" of the EOSC-Association European, the legal entity established to govern the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Complementary support and information were provided through European projects "EOSC-Life" (No824087) and "FAIR Impact" (No101057344). This paper is linked to the Supplementary Material - Magagna, Barbara, Baumann, Kurt, David, Romain, Jouneau, Thomas, Le Franc, Yann, Koivula, Hanna, Madon, Bénédicte, Nyberg Åkerström, Wolmar, Ojsteršek, Milan, Scharnhorst, Andrea, Schubert, Chris, Shi, Zhengdong, Tanca, Letizia, Vancauwenbergh, Sadia, Vogt, Lars, & Widmann, Heinrich. (2023). Proposal for the EOSC Semantic Interoperability Questionnaire (1.0.2). 2nd Workshop on Ontologies for FAIR and FAIR Ontologies (Onto4FAIR), Sherbrooke, Québec (Canada). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8028392 This Supplementary Material will be updated during the process of the survey-completion, {"references":["Magagna, Barbara, Baumann, Kurt, David, Romain, Jouneau, Thomas, Le Franc, Yann, Koivula, Hanna, Madon, Bénédicte, Nyberg Åkerström, Wolmar, Ojsteršek, Milan, Scharnhorst, Andrea, Schubert, Chris, Shi, Zhengdong, Tanca, Letizia, Vancauwenbergh, Sadia, Vogt, Lars, & Widmann, Heinrich. (2023). Proposal for the EOSC Semantic Interoperability Questionnaire (1.0.2). 2nd Workshop on Ontologies for FAIR and FAIR Ontologies (Onto4FAIR), Sherbrooke, Québec (Canada). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8028392"]}

27 slides.-- Presentation delivered by euroCRIS President Jan Dvořák at the EARMA Annual Conference 2023 in Prague The Current Research Information System (CRIS) landscape is becoming increasingly complex. In the early days, CRIS systems were often seen as institutional assets, but by gradually realising the many benefits CRIS systems bring to the Research Management and Administration community for organising and supporting research in a more efficient manner, numerous stakeholders have now adopted more region-wide approaches to CRIS system operation. In fact, research information management practice often follows national frameworks, which in turn leads to the emergence of country-specific CRIS vendors and solutions. While it is still possible to provide a generic overview of the system solutions available, any international CRIS landscape description will often need to be fine-tuned for a specific geographic area. This trend may be even more acute in the area of research management and administration. In February 2021 euroCRIS and EARMA organised a joint event on the overlap between research information management (RIM) and research management and administration (RMA). The former is the 'natural playground' for CRIS systems, but as discussed back then, RIM and RMA are actually a continuum in the research lifecycle and system solutions often cover areas from both domains.

13 slides Summary of recent euroCRIS activity provided by the euroCRIS President Sadia Vancauwenbergh on behalf of the Board. The presentation touches upon the forthcoming release of the updated euroCRIS Statutes, the recent release of the proceedings for the CRIS2022 Conference in Dubrovnik and the venue and dates for the next CRIS2024 Conference among others.

16 + 24 slides.-- Joint presentation by the euroCRIS President and Technical Secretary delivered at the Nov 24th, 2022 webinar organised by CEPAL (Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe), https://cepal.libcal.com/calendar/capacitacion/webinar-noviembre-2022 [EN] In line with the euroCRIS mission to "promote collaboration within the research information management community and advance interoperability through CERIF", the webinar will explore the role Research Information Management (RIM) Systems or CRIS and the CERIF standard play in the way Open Science is currently being implemented at various levels in Europe and beyond. A particular emphasis will be made on the emerging RIM infrastructure in Latin America and its potential usefulness to standardise and deepen the Open Science workflows in the region". [ES] En línea con la misión de euroCRIS de "promover la colaboración en el marco de la comunidad de gestión de la información de investigación y avanzar en su interoperabilidad a través del estándar CERIF", el webinar abordará el papel que los sistemas CRIS para la gestión de la información científica y el estándar CERIF (Common European Research Information Format) desempeñan en la implantación de la ciencia abierta tal como se realiza actualmente a diversos niveles en Europa y más allá. La presentación hará especial énfasis en la creciente infraestrutura CRIS en América Latina y su potencial utilidad para armonizar y profundizar los flujos de trabajo relativos a la ciencia abierta en la región.

23 slides.-- Presentation delivered within the Hatun Tinkuy Perú 2022 event in Cusco, https://hatuntinkuy.concytec.gob.pe/ [EN] The presentation provides an insight on the structure and features of Research Information Systems (CRIS) using the Flanders Researh Information Space (FRIS) regional portal as an example. The CERIF data model (for Common European Research Information Format) underpinning these systems is examined, with an emphasis on system interoperability and information exchange mechanisms. A summary of the euroCRIS mission, activities and resources is also provided. [ES] La presentación examina la estructura y características de los sistemas de gestión de información científica o CRIS empleando el portal regional FRIS (Flanders Researh Information Space) como ejemplo. Se presenta el modelo de datos CERIF (Common European Research Information Format) que subyace a estos sistemas y se hace énfasis en la interoperabilidad de sistemas y los mecanismos de intercambio de información como rasgos clave de los CRIS. Finalmente se ofrece un resumen sobre euroCRIS, su misión, sus actividades y recursos como el DRIS (Directorio de Sistemas de Información Científica) o este repositorio.

15 slides.-- Presentation delivered on the CRIS2022 pre-conference Day (Wed May 11th, 2022) This update from the euroCRIS Board presentation delivered in the wake of the CRIS2022 conference in Dubrovnik by the euroCRIS President Sadia Vancauwenbergh provides an update on the ongoing euroCRIS activities over two and a half year since the euroCRIS community had the opportunity to meet face to face for the last time. A summary is provided of the current euroCRIS Board and membership composition, the 2021 euroCRIS account, the ongoing process to have the Statutes updated and the ongoing euroCRIS projects and initiatives.

Extended abstract to be presented at the CRIS2022 conference in Dubrovnik.-- Event programme available at https://cris2022.srce.hr/#section-program 42 slides.-- Presentation delivered within the session "Open Science implementation [I]" In this study we use the data of an interorganisational CRIS to identify interdisciplinary research projects in Flanders. Because of the amount and the richness of the data available on the FRIS portal, we were able to combine two approaches to approximate interdisciplinarity, i.e. an organisational approach, based on the degree of diversity of the team of researchers involved in a project, and a cognitive approach, based on the diversity of topics used in the content of the project. With these two approaches we were able to identify a set of research projects that are potentially interdisciplinary in nature. With the proposed mechanism, we can monitor how interdisciplinary research is situated in Flanders and how it evolves over time. Additionally, it can be further developed into a visualisation tool for the FRIS portal to visually mark those projects that are identified as IDR. Despite the fact that this study only focused on the FRIS portal, the proposed methods can easily be applied to other (inter)institutional CRIS systems.

The FRIS-portal is a regional current research information system (CRIS) and a research discovery platform governed by the Department Economy, Sciences and Innovation (EWI) of the Flemish government. The platform allows metadata of publicly funded research data (e.g. researchers, research institutions, publicly funded projects and publications) to be retrievable. More than 60 research performing and research funding organisations (e.g. universities, higher education colleges, strategic research centres) supply metadata to the portal, legally governed by a variety of decrees and covenants. As the metadata are used to monitor the Flemish policy on science and innovation, the accuracy of the data is of great significance. The FRIS portal operates with a knowledge model with data objects related to research output (researchers, projects, publications etc.) that are interlinked and to which metadata, information models and classifications are attached. A part of the research performing and funding institutions deliver metadata on research information (persons, organizations, projects, publications, etc.) in real-time directly to FRIS via CERIF-XML (Common European Research Information Format) 1 via their institutional repositories and research infrastructures. In that sense, information about research data can be linked and enriched with information about related projects, publications etc. To ensure a standardised and uniform delivery of the data, the diverse stakeholders use the same underlying information models and classifications, which are developed by ECOOM-Hasselt, strategic partner of FRIS, in consultation with the data providers. 1

77 slides.-- Guest euroCRIS presentation at the EARMA Conference 2022 in Oslo Over the past decades, the administrative burden on the research community has vastly expanded. In order to support research managers in their daily operation, research information systems have been built that are aimed at supporting research management processes and the efficient re-use of information for multiple purposes. Through the use of CERIF, the Common European Research Information Format, developed and maintained by euroCRIS, multiple research information systems can be connected and, importantly, can exchange research information in an interoperable manner. In Flanders, such a regional information management system has been established, and a portal termed FRIS (researchportal.be) has been built on top of this. This seminar focuses on the design and architecture of the FRIS systems and details the vast range of opportunities that research managers can obtain through the use of regional information systems. Practical examples will be given by research managers using the FRIS portal in the field of research reporting, analytics, and funding opportunities. Data on some CERIF entities – such as funded projects, for instance by the EU, or patents – is most fruitfully analysed at a regional or a national level, hence the value of these portals. In fact, FRIS is just an example of an ever-growing number of national and regional research information systems that countries across Europe are using to gather business intelligence on their research activity. These national and regional CRISs are usually listed in the euroCRIS Directory of Research Information Systems or DRIS. As part of its support for the research information management community worldwide, euroCRIS promotes communication and knowledge exchange across projects for creating national or regional portals and will do so again in its forthcoming CRIS2022 conference.

In 2011, Peters et al. wrote a report on the administrative simplification of research reporting in Flanders. Next to the description of several data flows that could be harmonised, validated and merged into CRIS systems, the report also contained important recommendations on the use of common standards and classifications that could lead to more efficient and qualitative research information (systems) and thus more efficient research reporting. In the context of reporting on research output and expertise, data is clustered based on research disciplines. Currently, a variety of research discipline classification lists are used in Flanders, each depending on the authority to whom a researcher is obliged to report. Because the existence of several research discipline lists for a region as small as Flanders is redundant and inefficient, one of the most important recommendations of the report by Peters et al. 2011 was the creation of a single research discipline code list that could be used to tag discipline related information inside CRIS systems. By using a single classification list by all Flemish stakeholders, an important efficiency gain can be realized with the researchers, the administrative services of the host institution as well as the financing institutions. Since 2015, ECOOM-Hasselt has been working on 1) integrating the existing Flemish research discipline lists that are used for describing and classifying research, into a single Flemish discipline list, 2) providing each of the disciplines with a definition that specifies the semantic borders of each research discipline, and 3) evaluating the resulting discipline code list on completeness and granularity of the disciplines and on the correctness of the accompanying definitions. This work resulted in the “Flemish research discipline list”, a single four-level hierarchical and semantically-enriched list of research disciplines covering all scientific research performed in Flanders following the rules of classification governance. The implementation of this classification list however, also demanded the development of concordance schemes towards the existing classifications, in order to ensure a smooth transition into all CRIS systems, i.e. without historical data loss. Currently, the Flemish research discipline list is being implemented in the CRIS systems of several stakeholders in Flanders (FWO, VLIR, Flemish government, universities, etc.), and will be used to display research in Flanders on the FRIS research portal from 2019 onwards.

Data quality is crucial in measuring and analyzing science, technology and innovation adequately, which allows for the proper monitoring of research efficiency, productivity and even strategic decision making. In this chapter, the concept of data quality will be defined in terms of the different dimensions that together determine the quality of data. Next, methods will be discussed to measure these dimensions using objective and subjective methods. Specific attention will be paid to the management of data quality through the discussion of critical success factors in operational, managerial and governance processes including training that affect data quality. The chapter will be concluded with a section on data quality improvement, which examines data quality issues and provides roadmaps in order to improve and follow-up on data quality, in order to obtain data that can be used as a reliable source for quantitative and qualitative measurements of research.

Since the advent of the digital age, academic libraries have been transforming from traditional libraries to digital libraries. While digitisation of published materials has been taking place in most libraries, research data is not yet a common good. However, in an era where the Open Science movement affectuates the modus operandi of the entire research ecosystem, it is paramount for digital libraries to include information on other digital objects such as research data. In fact, FAIR and Open research (meta)data can truly act as a leverage for digital libraries and broaden the scope of the library from a place for content consumption to a place for content creation. In order to take on this role, digital libraries must cooperate with ICT and the research community to ensure that the infrastructure is in place to store research (meta)data and that the librarians have the digital skill set for handling FAIR and Open research (meta)data. Throughout the chapter, we will elaborate on the essentials for creating a digital repository, with emphasis on the underlying metadata scheme using the Flemish application profile for research data as example. In addition, we will highlight the essential roles for operating digital libraries containing research data.

The presentation described the transition towards an enhanced version of the Flemish Research Information System (FRIS 2.0), where special emphasis has been made on semantic interoperability with its data providers at institutions. The data and classification governance structure set up for the purpose is presented. An update is finally provided on the progress in the definition of a harmonized research data management practice across universities in Flanders.

Over the past decade, university rankings have become increasingly popular among a broad variety of end-users ranging from policymakers to researchers, students and their parents. Although ranking results presented by a single rank score seem to be easily interpretable, many caveats have been drawn regarding the indicators, their accompanying semantics as well as the methodologies used for data collection. In many cases, the semantic content of the indicators is poorly defined, leaving a grey zone that allows universities to collect data according to their own interpretation. This, together with differences in the local context of a university, results in a great variety in data that impedes a reliable comparison of universities. To overcome this variability, a Flemish initiative led by ECOOM-UHasselt, accommodated the semantic interpretation of the indicators used in U-Multirank. In consultation with U-Multirank, indicator definitions were scrutinized with regard to the specific interpretation of each of the four participating Flemish universities. Consequently, joint decisions with regard to the semantic interpretation and the data collection were taken and registered in a so-called ‘Flemish handbook for semantic comparable U-Multirank results’. This level of fine-tuning ensures an identical interpretation and a harmonized data collection resulting in truly semantically comparable ranking results. Centre for Research & Development Monitoring (ECOOM – UHasselt)

Since the appearance of the Shanghai ranking, the number of global academic rankings has grown. These rankings not only differ horizontally and vertically, but also in the methods and indicators used to evaluate university performance. Rankings have become increasingly popular over the years and receive wide media attention. It is therefore essential that ranking results, their underlying methodologies and indicators are interpreted correctly. Furthermore, knowledge of the used semantics is crucial, especially in inter-organizational data collection. Too often conclusions are drawn without considering what a particular ranking result exactly entails. This poster presents an overview of frequently occurring misinterpretations of rankings. ECOOM

Research information systems are often described as important tools to enhance open innovation, by directly gathering and unlocking information on scientific and technological research to stakeholders. Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) are mostly developed within a single organization with a context-specific vocabulary and generally use the Common European Research Information Format (CERIF) for data storage. Although CERIF allows for almost unlimited possibilities to model research information, it has - like any standard - limitations when it comes down to communication to end-users in terms of semantics. However, if one wants to exchange the information kept within CRIS systems, it is essential to include research information and classification governance as this is key to truly comparable and thus meaningful information. In this paper, we elaborate on research information and classification governance as a prerequisite for establishing true semantic interoperability of CRIS systems in inter-organizational contexts. Flanders Government, Department Economy, Science and Innovation (EWI) + ECOOM project team

In a knowledge-based economy, a good overview of the scientific and technological portfolio is essential for policy formation and driving knowledge transfer. In order to enhance open innovation, the Flemish public administration has created a Flanders research information portal (FRIS) that integrates information available from its data providers (research institutions, funding organizations…) using the CERIF standard. Although CERIF allows for almost unlimited flexibility for modelling research information, it has limitations when it comes down to communication to end-users, in terms of semantics. Hence, data and classification governance is a prerequisite in the realisation of a true semantic interoperable RIS. This work is part of the Classification Governance project carried out for the Expertise Centre for Research & Development Monitoring (ECOOM) in Flanders, which is supported by the Department of Economy, Science and Innovation, Flanders.

In a knowledge-based economy, a good overview of the scientific and technological portfolio is essential for policy formation and driving knowledge transfer to the industry and the broad public. In order to enhance open innovation, the Flemish public administration has created a Flanders research information portal (FRIS, http://www.researchportal.be) that integrates information available from its data providers (research institutions, funding organizations…) using the CERIF (The Common European Research Information Format) standard. Although this standard allows for almost unlimited flexibility for modelling the research information, it has limitations when it comes down to communication to end-users, in terms of semantics. However, interoperability of research information is only meaningful when a well-defined semantics is used. This paper describes the implementation of a business semantics tool on data concepts and classifications for research funding as a means to unambiguously exchange and interpret these data. This work is part of the Classification Governance project carried out for the Expertise Centre for Research & Development Monitoring (ECOOM) in Flanders, which is supported by the Department of Economy, Science and Innovation, Flanders.

In a knowledge-based economy, a good overview of the scientific and technological portfolio is essential for policy formation and driving knowledge transfer to the industry and the broad public. In order to enhance open innovation, the Flemish public administration has created a Flanders research information portal (FRIS, http://www.researchportal.be) that integrates information available from its data providers (research institutions, funding organizations…) using the CERIF (The Common European Research Information Format) standard. Although this standard allows for almost unlimited flexibility for modelling the research information, it has limitations when it comes down to communication to end-users, in terms of semantics. However, interoperability of research information is only meaningful when a well-defined semantics is used. This paper describes the implementation of a business semantics tool on data concepts and classifications for research funding as a means to unambiguously exchange and interpret these data. This work is part of the Classification Governance project carried out for the Expertise Centre for Research & Development Monitoring (ECOOM) in Flanders, which is supported by the Department of Economy, Science and Innovation, Flanders.

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