Current research information systems and/as research evaluation infrastructures: the Pure/Lucris example

Drawing on Star and Bowker’s (2006) ideas on ‘infrastructures’, as well as on Åström’s (2016) discussion on using Star and Bowker’s ideas as an analytical framework for studying research evaluation practices, this talk aims at outlining an investigation of the Pure system using the infrastructure framework. Pure is a Current Research Information System (CRIS), developed by Elsevier, in the research evaluation context perhaps most notable for being the system chosen for managing submissions for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 in the UK.
The framework suggested by Åström (2016) outlines the main parts of an infrastructure in terms of ‘people’, ‘software’ and ‘hardware’. The empirical basis for the outline presented will be the local installation of Pure at Lund University, which will be analyzed in terms of: the actors involved, such as Elsevier and Lund University; the hardware, e.g. in terms of the Pure system and Scopus data, as well as how it connects to other systems; and the indicators (representing the ‘software’ in Åström’s outline of research evaluation infrastructures) either available in the system or being used based on data coming out of the system.
This outline is very much an early draft of research yet to be undertaken; thus the purpose of the presentation is not so much to report on findings, as to discuss potential points of entry into the combination of the suggested analytical framework and this particular empirical case.