Open Consultation: Crafting a Vision for European Repositories – COAR

"Repositories collectively acquire, preserve, and provide open access to tens or possibly hundreds of millions of valuable research outputs.

In January 2023, OpenAIRE, LIBER, SPARC Europe, and COAR unveiled a joint strategy to strengthen the European repository network. This aim is to further strengthen the open science landscape in Europe by reinforcing and enhancing repositories across Europe by emphasizing their value, spreading best practices, and supporting the establishment of national networks.

As the first step, a comprehensive survey of the European repository landscape was conducted from February to March 2023. The survey revealed that European repositories collectively acquire, preserve, and provide open access to tens, if not hundreds, of millions of valuable research outputs, serving as critical, non-profit infrastructure in the European open science landscape. However, the survey also identified several areas needing improvement. Specifically, repositories face three primary challenges:

1. Maintaining up-to-date, highly functional software platforms.
2. Implementing consistent and comprehensive best practices in metadata, preservation, and usage statistics.
3. Achieving appropriate visibility in the scholarly ecosystem....

To held develop a collective vision, we are now preparing a position paper to outline our collective vision for the future of repositories in Europe. But we can’t do it alone—we need YOUR insights and feedback to shape this vision...."