CatRIS Information

CatRIS – Catalogue of Research Infrastructure Services - is a H2020 project that started in January 2019. It aims at creating a portal to gather, harmonise and make accessible information on the European RI services, contributing to the goals of the European Open Science Cloud. CatRIS will analyse existing initiatives to identify best practices and to propose a catalogue able to respond to users’ needs. In opposition to the generic online search engines, CatRIS will provide direct access to accurate and up-to-date information delivered by RI service providers themselves. The RI services will be provided in a structured, harmonised and cross-disciplinary format which will follow a thoughtful categorization scheme. CatRIS will interconnect several databases, something that is unavailable in search engines. Advanced search functions will be on-hand to guarantee that users get the best available information to satisfy their needs. Users will be redirected to local or thematic catalogues and will also be able to compare RI services of different providers. The RI community will be able to use the CatRIS as a marketplace to publicise RI services, avoiding the drawbacks of generic search engines. The portal will also facilitate the search, exploration, comparison and reviewing of RI services. Such possibilities are currently not available to for RI users, since the information is spread and unstructured throughout the web, or available in fragmented, individual cataloguing initiatives.