Energy RTD Information Systems in the ERA - European ...

Figure 5 – Relative importance for aspects of information content
Energy RTD Information Systems in the ERA
A number of information systems have installed mechanisms to provide information of guaranteed
high quality:
• Reputable Austrian research institutes assure the quality of the content of the energy technology
sites of Energytech.at
• The scientifi c search engine Scirus claims high quality from the fact that it draws predominantly
on scientifi c sources and peer-reviewed scientifi c journals
• In other cases all government-funded RTD is peer-reviewed (e.g. in the UK)
• IEA ETDEWEB and US DOE TIM claim high quality through the stringent information quality
procedures that are applied.
However, in most energy RTD information systems (as listed in Annexes B and C) the quality
system is only implicit. The user is kept in doubt about the actual status and quality of the
reports and abstracts presented. These systems do not make any reference to information
upload and quality procedures. A general observation is that many funding programme-related
systems primarily contain information extracted from the project descriptions submitted. These
texts describe “what the RTD will (ideally) achieve” instead of “what the RTD has achieved”. As
project descriptions are written to acquire funding, they often lack scientifi c and technical details
and also objectivity (sketching too positive panoramas).
Large differences also exist on update frequency of the energy RTD information systems. The
difference is between sustained and professionally managed initiatives and occasional initiatives.
Professionally managed systems have well-defi ned procedures about the update frequency.
Systems driven by accountability of funding typically update once a year, when the new funding
projects are known. It is remarkable is that some systems, developed with EU funding, are
no longer updated but still available on the web. Examples are EU Atlas, EU Agores and EU
Euronex.
There are large differences in coverage of energy RTD. IEA ETDEWEB provides the largest
database: it gives access to 3.4 million bibliographic records on energy RTD provided by the 16
participating IEA member countries. The table below gives insight in the coverage of energy RTD
of systems for which data are available.
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