Pure will enable the technological university to capitalise on funding opportunities, demonstrate its research impact, and identify opportunities for collaboration.
Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) recently launched ‘Pure’, a new Current Research Information System (CRIS) designed to advance research performance, grow global reputation, expand funding streams, and enable collaboration both nationally and internationally.
The Pure portal offers a publicly accessible, fully searchable, and navigable interface, with information drawn directly from WIT’s research management system, where fellow researchers, and potential partners can find information about the Institute’s academic and postgraduate researchers, research activity, and research outputs.
Support economic and social development of the south east
Speaking of the importance of this new system, Prof Willie Donnelly, President of SETU said, “Research and innovation are key activities of the new technological university. Centralising all of the Institute’s research activity on Pure will ensure that South East Technological University (SETU) strategically develops it international reputation for research and innovation in support of the economic and social development of the south east region.”
Higher educational institutions operate in an increasingly complex and competitive environment. In order to thrive, they need data and systems that provide insights into their research. Pure aggregates research data including publications, projects, awards, media and more, from a variety of sources onto a single, intelligent, and secure platform, ensuring data is always ‘complete, current, correct, compliant and connected’.
Strategically plan regional research and monitor impact
Dr Mark White, Vice President for Research, Innovation & Graduate Studies added, “Having the Pure system and access to current research related data from our research active staff is such an important asset for any research performing organisation and is a first important step for us as we become a technological university. Having the Pure system operational and rolled out throughout SETU will allow us to be able to strategically plan our regional research activities and monitor their impact”.
WIT chose to adopt Pure to help centrally administer the elements and processes that comprise the research ecosystem at SETU, including data collation and research reporting of its different academic schools, research institute, centres and groups, to align with best practice of international communities. The new system increases the efficiency and effectiveness of research information management activities providing a competitive edge in the global academic landscape.
Demonstrate WIT's global impact
“Pure in essence represents a move from cataloguing publications to cataloguing what we call research assets. Research assets go beyond just publications, it includes researcher profiles, profiles of our academic schools and departments, profiling our external collaborators, the relationship between our internal staff members, and the projects they are working on, the journals they are publishing in, and even the grants that they have brought into the Institute,” explained Susie Cullinane, Senior Project Coordinator.
Pure will allow SETU to capitalise on funding opportunities with clear visibility of workflow activity, demonstrate WIT’s global impact with measurable indicators linked to research output, and improve research perception by showcasing the Institute’s achievements.
Over 370 Pure profiles
Pure automatically pulls publication data from Elsevier’s Scopus®, the world’s largest abstract and citation database, and combines it with data from other Open Access databases, and internally from WIT’s Institutional repository, to create comprehensive and accurate Pure profiles, allowing researchers to find, and be found, by potential industry and academic collaborators. Over 370 SETU research active staff, in addition to all Research Masters and PhD students, will be given a profile as part of the new system.
To access the Pure portal and explore WIT’s research now visit: https://research.wit.ie