An RIS file is a bibliographic citation file saved in a format developed by Research Information Systems (RIS). It contains a series of lines delimited by two-character codes and a corresponding value. RIS files provide information such as title, author, publication date, keywords, publisher, issue number, and start and end page.

RIS files were created to standardize the exchange of citation information and are commonly exchanged between digital libraries. RIS files are saved in an ASCII text format, which means they can be opened and modified using a text editor.