CARIS (the Current Agricultural Research Information System) is an informational system on actual research in agriculture, which was developed by the FAO for exchanging the information on current research projects in agriculture with the purpose of providing assistance for developing countries. The system covers research in all agricultural fields:

• forestry;
• fishery;
• crop growing;
• animal husbandry;
• crop protection;
• primary processing of agricultural produce;
• natural resources and environment - agriculture relation;
• food industry, human alimentation;
• agricultural economics;
• social and economic development of rural regions, management, legislation and education.

CARIS is an International system, in which member countries send data on their research and within which they use the information sent by other members. 134 National, 19 International and interstate Centers are developing the database including at present about 30 000 current projects. Two regional Centers collect the information from countries located in their respective regions. The system is administrated and the joint database Agris WAICENT/FAOINFO is supported by auxiliary library and database departments (the FAO, Rome) responsible for methodology, operating instructions, training and development of self-training materials within the CARIS program.