The paper presents a proposal for the Heloise Common Research Model (HCRM), to be implemented for the European research network on digital academic history – Heloise. The objective of Heloise is to interlink databases and other digital resources stemming from several research projects in the field of academic history, to provide an integrated database for federated research on the network databases. The HCRM defines three layers: the Repository Layer, the Application Layer and the Research Interface Layer, which are presented in detail. As part of the application and research interface layer, essential concepts are the symogih.org ontology and a Heloise network-specific thesaurus. The concepts have been tested on a sample of Heloise network’s datasets as a part of a prototype of the envisaged platform that the authors have started implementing. The paper concludes with future developments to be accomplished within the Heloise network.