Executive Summary

OUR MANDATE

Conducting and administering research today is an increasingly multi-stakeholder and multi-

disciplinary endeavour. The stakeholders include the highly qualified personnel doing the
actual research (researchers and students) and the organizations that facilitate and support
the research (universities, colleges and funding agencies). This 'ecosystem' of independent
but collaborating stakeholders depends on an increasingly fragmented, duplicative and
complex set of data about research personnel and activities. Recording, maintaining,
analysing and sharing this data is difficult and places a tremendous administrative burden on
researchers. This results in valuable research time being spent on repetitive administrative
tasks and valuable data being left untapped and underutilized.

The Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI) is a

not-for-profit organization with a mandate to solve this problem by providing the forum and the
mechanisms for the research community to standardize the semantics and format of research
administration data. We envision researchers maintaining a single, authoritative source of
data on themselves and their activities and being able to easily reuse this single source of
data, as needed, with all stakeholders using any software hosted at any location. Universities,
colleges and funding agencies can then have confidence in the quality and comparability of
data that is generated, maintained, and exchanged in research administration processes.

OUR DATA STANDARDS

CASRAI maintains four inter-related sets of data standards which cover all the information
typically collected and shared in research administration processes:

PERSONNEL ACTIVITY OUTCOMES/BENEFITS CLASSIFICATION

PROFILE PROFILE PROFILE TAXONOMY
All the data elements All the data elements All the data elements A single authoritative tri-
that describe the that describe the that describe the key sector set of discipline
people involved in activities performed by performance indicators codes to classify all
research research personnel increasingly requested research activity and
by funding organizations output

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OUR BOARD

CASRAI is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors made up of distinguished leaders in

the research community:

 Janet E. Halliwell (Chair). Dr. Halliwell is an independent scholar in S&T policy, a BC-based
consultant and advisor on S&T and post-secondary education and past Executive Vice-President at
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
 Robert A. Phillips. Dr. Phillips is a former cancer researcher, a former senior officer of the National
Cancer Institute of Canada and past Deputy Director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.

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  Amir Attaran. Dr. Attaran is a Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor at the University of
Ottawa. His research and professional activities include law and the life sciences.
 Sandra Crocker. Ms. Crocker is Assistant Vice-Principal, Operations at McGill University, former
Associate VP Research at Queen’s and prominent in the national community of research
administrators and managers.
 Chuck Humphrey. Mr. Humphrey is Head of the Data Library at the University of Alberta,
responsible for the Research Data Centre at the University of Alberta and Chair of the external
advisory committee for the data Liberation Initiative.
 Joseph Hubert. Dr. Hubert is Vice-President Research at University of Montreal, formerly Chair of
Chemistry and Dean of Arts and Science at U de M. He is recognized for his research contributions
(e.g. the Montreal Medal of the CIC, the Fisher Prize, award of the Compagnon de Lavoisier in
Quebec). He has had extensive experience with the federal and Quebec funding agencies
 Mark Bisby. Dr. Bisby is former researcher in physiology, former Chair of the Department of
Physiology at Queen’s University, a past Vice-President Programs/Research at the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and now a science & technology consultant based in Ottawa.
The Board governs a management team with a combined forty years in the research
administration domain and a team of business and technical analysts who are internationally
recognized in the data standards field.

JOIN CASRAI

Your organization can play its leadership role in the development and maintenance of the
information standards by becoming a CASRAI Associate. Your organization is an ideal
candidate to be a CASRAI Associate if any of the following characteristics apply:

 you are perceived as a leading supporter of research in your jurisdiction

 your researchers receive support from multiple independent sources
 your stakeholders expect continued innovation and efficiencies in business practice

The following organizations are CASRAI Associates and committed to aligning their data
requirements to CASRAI standards and advancing the CASRAI objectives:

 The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)

 The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSRHC)
 The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI)
 The Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE)
 The Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation (MRI)
 The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR)
 The University of British Columbia (UBC)

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The above organizations invest in CASRAI based on the following value proposition:

1. Leadership:
 Stewardship. Research data is an asset. Standardization improves the integrity and
accessibility of that asset.
 Innovation. CASRAI activities in developing and promoting standards for research
administration information position Canada as a first mover and innovator on a global
scale.
 Communication. CASRAI plays an important role as interlocutor among funders,
institutions and researchers on research administration information and management.
2. Benefits for the research community:
 Efficiency and effectiveness. Standardization reduces duplication and streamlines
the process of applying for funds through (a) elimination of the need to re-enter data
and (b) inter-operability of information systems without the need to standardize
software. Researchers will spend less time on administration and focus more on their
research. Institutions and funders will gain better access to better quality information.
 Returns on investment. Saving just one day per year for each researcher in Canada
(a conservative estimate of the benefit of standards) translates into between 8 and 10
million dollars channelled to research rather than administration.
 Accountability. Standardization greatly facilitates the transparent collection and
comparison of data for accountability, including the reporting of key performance
indicators (KPI).
3. Private sector opportunities:
 Incentive. Standardization of data serve as an incentive to industry (software
vendors, other industry players) through the development and implementation of a
common information platform with a predictable life-cycle. Greater incentives to
industry translate into greater diversity of suppliers and this into lower costs to the
research institutions and funders that depend on such software.

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HOW TO JOIN

Your organization joins CASRAI by becoming an Associate at one of three levels. Each level
brings a higher level of leadership, visibility and input in the standardization process. Which
level of Associate you chose reflects the level of stewardship appropriate to your organization
within the research community. Your level also determines your role in the following CASRAI
bodies of standards governance:

 Executive Council - Senior executives from "Level 3" Associates provide guidance to
the CASRAI Board, receive regular targeted updates and an invitation to an annual
meeting of Board and Management to explore future directions and priorities.
 Standards Committees - Subject matter experts from "Level 3" and "Level 2"
Associates (or externally recruited) actively oversee the development and maintenance
of a specific data standard.
 Advisory Circle - Subject matter experts from all Associate levels review and
comment to the Standards Committees on early draft standards before they are ready
for public release.
The following tables outline the participation benefits and annual fees associated with each
level:

BENEFITS (BY LEVEL)

Benefit Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

Use of the CASRAI Associate logo to denote
X X X
your leadership in the setting of standards.
Seat on any Advisory Circle X X X
Seat on any Standard Committee X X
Seat on the Executive Council to the Board X

ANNUAL FEES (BY LEVEL)

Organization Type Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

National organization supporting research $2,500.00 $12,000.00 $60,000.00
Regional organization supporting research $1,500.00 $2,500.00 $20,000.00
Institution performing research $700.00 $1,500.00 $7,500.00

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