CRIS + Open Access = The Route to Research Knowledge on the GRID

Linking CRISs (Current Research Information Systems) and OA (Open Access) Systems brings together systems for managing R&D with systems for providing open access to scholarly publishing – the major visible output of R&D – on the emerging European GRIDs infrastructure. The debate over OA is very active with ‘green’ (institutional repository selfarchiving) and ‘gold’ (author / institution pays publishing) as competing but also complementary processes. The major publishers are experimenting with ‘gold’ services while ‘green’ institutional repositories are growing fast. GRIDs, especially through the NGG (Next Generation GRID) Reports [NGG] has emerged as a vision for a European IT ‘surface’ now being implemented progressively especially under the auspices of EC DG INFSO F2 to provide easy-to-use access to information and computation. CRISs provide both a context for evaluation of and understanding the background to – scholarly publication. CRISs also provide a management framework for R&D in institutions from funding agencies through national laboratories to universities, as well as a mechanism for interoperating research and development information.