Repositories Support Project

Repositories Support Project
Name	Repositories Support Project
Formation	1990s
Type	Non-profit organization
Purpose	Digital preservation and scholarly communication support
Headquarters	United Kingdom
Region served	United Kingdom, international
Language	English

Repositories Support Project

The Repositories Support Project is a UK-based initiative providing technical, strategic and advocacy support for institutional repositories, digital preservation, and open access infrastructure. It delivers capacity building, policy guidance and community coordination to higher education and research institutions including universities, libraries and funders. The project has influenced standards, interoperable services and training across a range of digital scholarship programs.

Overview

The project operates at the intersection of digital curation, scholarly communication, and information infrastructure, engaging with stakeholders such as Jisc, Research Councils UK, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge and national libraries including the British Library and the National Library of Scotland. It provides tools and guidance that align with standards promulgated by bodies like Europeana, Digital Curation Centre, and the Open Archives Initiative. Work intersects with initiatives such as SHERPA/RoMEO, ORCID, Crossref, DataCite and platform projects including DSpace, EPrints and Fedora Commons. Outputs support compliance with mandates from funders such as the Wellcome Trust, UK Research and Innovation, and international programs like the Horizon 2020 framework.

History

Rooted in early repository-building activity in the 1990s and 2000s, the project emerged alongside efforts at institutions like University of Southampton and Harvard University to implement open access and institutional archiving. It drew on collaborations with national consortia such as JISC (now Jisc) and policy developments influenced by the Budapest Open Access Initiative and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. The project contributed to workflows adopted by repository platforms including EPrints at the University of Southampton and DSpace implementations at research organizations like MIT and Cornell University. Over successive funding cycles, it coordinated with funding bodies including HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) and advisory entities such as the UK Data Archive.

Mission and Objectives

The stated aims focus on enabling sustainable, interoperable repository services across higher education and research institutions. Objectives include promoting open access policy adoption among institutions such as University College London, Imperial College London, and King's College London; supporting metadata and discovery standards like Dublin Core and the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting; and advancing persistent identifier adoption via Handle System and Digital Object Identifiers administered by Crossref and DataCite. The project seeks to strengthen preservation practices aligned with frameworks from the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions and the Library of Congress.

Services and Activities

Activities encompass training workshops, technical consultancy, policy templates, and community events. Training often references software ecosystems exemplified by DSpace, EPrints, Fedora Commons, and integration with services such as ORCID and Crossref deposition workflows. The project publishes guidance on metadata schemas, repository ingest workflows and preservation strategies consistent with specifications from OAIS and tooling from the Digital Preservation Coalition. It organises conferences and meetings in partnership with organisations like the Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) and professional bodies including the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. Technical support includes advising on APIs, OAI-PMH endpoints, and interoperability with discovery platforms such as Google Scholar, CORE, and Europe PMC.

Governance and Funding

Governance structures typically involve oversight from a steering group comprising representatives from universities, funders and library consortia such as Jisc and Research England. Funding has historically come from UK higher education funding councils, charitable funders like the Wellcome Trust, and collaborative grants involving national consortia. Project delivery partners have included higher education institutions and service providers, with accountability mechanisms aligned to funder reporting frameworks used by entities such as UK Research and Innovation and administrative bodies like Research Councils UK.

Impact and Evaluation

Impact assessments measure repository uptake, open access compliance rates, metadata quality improvements and preservation readiness across institutions including University of Edinburgh, University of Manchester and University of Glasgow. Evaluations reference metrics comparable to those used by Plan S advocates, citation and discovery statistics from Crossref and DataCite, and preservation indicators informed by the National Information Standards Organization. Case studies highlight successful deployments where repositories integrated with national services such as Jisc Scholarly Communications and discovery aggregators like CORE. Independent reviews have cited enhanced institutional policies at universities including Lancaster University and University of Leeds.

Partnerships and Collaborations

The project maintains partnerships with technical, policy and advocacy organisations, including Jisc, Digital Curation Centre, OpenAIRE, SHERPA/RoMEO, and commercial and open source vendors supporting DSpace and EPrints. Collaborative work spans funders such as the Wellcome Trust and UK Research and Innovation, international consortia like CONFU, and library networks including SCONUL and the Russell Group. It engages with standards bodies such as the Open Archives Initiative and preservation communities including the Digital Preservation Coalition to align repository practices with national and international interoperability goals.

Category:Digital repositories