PRC (Research Portal of Catalonia)

Research Portal of Catalonia (PRC) is the single point from which we give visibility and disseminate in Open Access the research outputs produced in Catalonia.

PRC collects information on researchers, publications, theses, datasets, research groups and research projects to promote their impact and visibility within the international scientific community, companies, funding organizations and the general public. In the long term, the goal of PRC is to simplify management processes and to support the evaluation processes.

In an open science context, information on research increased in importance. Consequently, this has changed the way this information is handled: from an internal issue committed to research management systems, the focus is now placed to externally display the research outputs of institutions, a task that is carried out through research portals such as PRC.

When the first sketches to develop PRC began, the only European reference for a similar project was in The Netherlands with NARCIS. In recent years, however, several data integration projects have been launched in the field of research and innovation. Some of the most distinguished projects are:

With the premise of facilitating access to the research done in Catalonia, PRC aggregates information from several sources and institutions, encouraging data reuse and, therefore, the transfer of knowledge, becoming a pioneering tool of this characteristics in Southern Europe.

PRC database is fed by data collected by universities and research centers of Catalonia in their research management systems (CRIS), which collect and disseminate all the information related to the research activities of the institution. Thanks to PRC, institutions improve the management of information through agreements reached on the provision of data, the Common European Research Information Format (CERIF) and interoperability protocols, the use of persistent digital identifiers (ORCID for researchers and DOI for publications), and the promotion of open access research and institutional repositories.

PRC includes research information of different typology: published articles in scientific journals, doctoral theses, books, research projects, and the profile of those researchers that are doing research in Catalonia.

PRC develops a remarkable role in providing statistics on a researcher scientific production, the type of publication by year and institution, open access publishing by institution and in PRC as a whole, and the number of researchers and publications evolution in the Portal.

PRC not only is a useful tool for researchers, but also for students, journalists and any other people that work in academic institutions and the business sector.

Considering the importance of disseminating research outputs of universities, research centers and institutions in open access and widely, PRC started its first steps in 2012. The General Directorate of Research of the government of Catalonia made CSUC responsible for the development of the project, a task that was assumed together with a working committee with members of the Catalan universities and research centers. After a period of restricted access to the portal, PRC was opened to the public in 2016.