Partners and organization

RCIN is currently being developed by 29 Institutes, mainly within the Polish Academy of Sciences. Below is a list of Partners forming the RCIN Consortium with links to their websites and their respective databases in RCIN:

1. Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology PAS [ Digital Repository IAiE PAN ];
2. Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering PAS [ Digital Repository IBIB PAN];
3. Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry PAS  [ Digital Repository IChB PAN ];
4. W. Szafer Institute of Botany PAS [ Digital Repository IB PAN ];
5. Institute of Dendrology PAS [ Digital Repository ID PAN ];
6. Institute of Economics PAS [ Digital Repository INE PAN ];
7. Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology PAS [ Digital Repository IBD PAN ];
8. Forest Research Institute PAS [ Digital Repository IBL ];
9. Institute of Fundamental Technological Research PAS [ Digital Repository IPPT PAN ];
10. Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization PAS [ Digital Repository IGiPZ PAN ];
11. L.&A. Birkenmajer Institute for the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences [ Digital Repository IHN PAN ];
12. Institute of History PAS [ Digital Repository IH PAN];
13. Institute of Literary Research PAS [ Digital Repository IBL PAN ];
14. Mammal Research Institute PAS [ Digital Repository IBS PAN ];
15. Institute of Mathematics PAS [ Digital Repository IM PAN ];
16. Mossakowski Medical Research Institute PAS [ Digital Repository IMDiK PAN ];
17. Łukasiewicz Research Network - Institute of Microelectronics and Photonics [ Digital Repository SBŁ-IMiF];
18. Institute of Nature Conservation PAS [ Digital Repository IOP PAN ];
19. Institute of Organic Chemistry PAS [ Digital Repository IChO PAN ];
20. Institute of Philosophy and Sociology PAS [ Digital Repository IFiS PAN ];
21. Institute of Phisics PAS [ Digital Repository IF PAN ];
22. Institute of Physical Chemistry PAS [ Digital Repository IChF PAN ];
23. Institute of Polish Language PAS [ Digital Repository IJP PAN ];
24. Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development PAS [ Digital Repository IRWiR PAN ];
25. Institute of Security Technologies "MORATEX" [ Digital Repository MORATEX ];
26. Institute of Slavic Studies PAS [ Digital Repository IS PAN ];
27. Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals PAS [ Digital Repository ISiEZ PAN ];
28. Institute of Systems Research PAS [ Digital Repository IBS PAN ] ;
29. Museum and Institute of Zoology PAS [ Digital Repository MiIZ PAN ];

The beginning of our efforts dates back to 2008, when the Digital Library of PAN Institutes was launched in July, whose continuation is the RCIN portal. The foundation of our activities is the Consortium Agreement from March 2nd 2010, updated on September 14th 2020, which defines not only the goals and principles of Consortium actions, but also assigns tasks to Partners and establishes principles of financing the maintenance of the RCIN platform by Partners in the long term. The agreement assumes indefinite operation of the RCIN platform.

Currently, the leading institution is the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, which represents RCIN externally. Another Consortium Partner, Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center - PCSS https://www.pcss.pl/, which is an organizational unit for Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of Polish Academy of Sciences, is the designer of IT solutions for RCIN. PCSS provides technical infrastructure and ensures round-the-clock data security. Other Institutes, producers of data, providing content, are responsible for its quality and rules of sharing, taking care of compliance with current regulations. The General Assembly of Consortium Members, represented by Institute Directors, makes strategic decisions as needed. In order to fulfil current tasks, the Support Team has been established, consisting of experts experienced in digitization and scientific information, collection custodians and researchers - representatives of each Institute. The team supports both the leading institution and PCSS in their activities, as a result of which the platform is developed in response to the diagnosed needs of its users.

Strategic decisions are taken by the RCIN Consortium’s General Assembly in the form of resolutions.

The RCIN Consortium's General Assembly votes on resolutions, prepared by the Lead Partner, the Core Support Team or a group of Partners. In order to approve a resolution ¾ of votes are required. Each Partner has one vote.

Improvements to the RCIN platform's functionality and a plan for ongoing work are proposed, discussed, rejected or approved by the Core Support Team at its monthly meetings, and tasks are then delegated to the designated Partner's Team or the RCIN Consortium's Informatics Support for implementation. At subsequent meetings, the Core Support Team monitors and approves the completion of these tasks.

The Head of the Partner's Team is part of the Core Support Team, and the Partner's Director is a member of the RCIN Consortium's General Assembly.

The Partner's Team includes i.a. editors (creating metadata and preparing presentation files), persons scanning the objects and curators of the collections selecting and preparing objects for digitization, employed by each Partner. Detailed recommendations, instructions for working within the Partner's Team can be found at the link: https://rcin.org.pl/dlibra/text?id=InformacjeTechniczne&language=en 

All employees of the Partner's Team are funded from the budgets of individual Partners and from project funds acquired by individual Partners or jointly by the RCIN Consortium.

The RCIN Consortium's Informatics Support is financed from contributions collected from RCIN Consortium Partners.

RCIN's IT infrastructure is part of the Polish Informatics Infrastructure for Science and is developed using government-based funds.