A brief RepNet presentation was delivered by Andrew Dorward last June 28th at the Institutional Repository session along the RIM CERIF Workshop held in Bristol by UKOLN and the JISC. The RepNet concept is very much in line with the invitation extended by Neil Jacobs at the session introduction to “break the walls of current silos in Research Information Management”. The repository session featured elevator pitches for running JISC RIM projects -such as DESCRIBE, CERIF in Action, UKRISS, IRIOS-2 or C4D– plus repository-related project presentations such as RepNet or the RIOXX Guidelines. Roundtable discussions on research information flows and how to bring all interlinked stakeholders and services into a single picture closed the morning session.

Two important issues were raised along the afternoon round table on CRISs, IRs and reporting research outputs for the REF: first, the group identified a need to surface a practical CERIF-qDC mapping that enables easy metadata transfer between CRISs and IRs. Second, since around 70% of UK HEIs are estimated not to have a CERIF-based CRIS, a case-specific roadmap to REF compliance for institutions with various RIM infrastructure assets was proposed as a desirable objetive to support every possible use case.