Digital repositories promise enormous benefits to the European research and education communities, and also to the public at large. By making available the products of research, they foster further research, promote improved healthcare, help preserve the environment and provide increased learning opportunities. These benefits in turn fuel and underpin the economic well-being of European states. These repositories form an important strategic part of Europe’s objectives for a Single Information Space and a European Research Infrastructure, and more widely for a knowledge infrastructure.

To give further impetus to the development, spread and use of digital repositories, and the preservation of Europe’s scientific heritage the European Commission’s Information Society and Media DG commissioned a study entitled “Towards a European e-Infrastructure for e-Science Digital Repositories” (”e-SciDR” for short).

The study, now completed, provides the Commission with an authoritative overview of the situation in Europe regarding e-Science digital repositories (taking “e-Science” in its widest sense), identifying needs for an e-infrastructure of and for repositories and setting out key issues. On this basis a set of 12 recommendations are made to the Commission to guide policy development, with the objective of actively driving forward the development and use of repositories in the EU.  These recommendations call for actions regarding policies, organisation and technology development and are classified into four areas:

1. Building and e-Infrastructure which ensures research continuity
2. The further engagement of users and repository service providers
3. Provision of access for researchers, educators and students (and more widely the citizen)
4. Maintaining and preserving research information.

The study undertook a series of workshops (culminating in a large workshop in Lisbon, September 2007), conducted a public consultation, undertook desk research and drew up a two interim reports and a final report.  All the report documents are to be found here, together with the final workshop materials and the consultation findings and analysis.

Study partners

This study was carried out by the Digital Archiving Consultancy Limited (DAC), who led a team comprising GridwiseTech (Poland), University of Glasgow (UK), Charles Beagrie Limited (UK), Com’tou (France), plus Imperial College.