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Panel

Repository Reminaged: The Impact Repo Project

16 September 2025| 16:15
81/R-003A - Science Gateway Auditorium A

Moderator

Kathleen Shearer

COAR
Kathleen Shearer is the Executive Director of COAR and has been a prominent figure in open access, open science, scholarly communications, and research data management for close to 20 years. Over the past 15 years, she has worked through COAR to build a truly global coalition of repositories and repository networks, ensuring that repositories are recognized as critical infrastructure for open science in national and continental policies; and that repositories innovate and adopt good practices. Based in Montreal, Canada, she actively contributes to numerous organizations working to advance open science at a global scale including the Research Data Alliance, UNESCO Open Science Working Groups as well as numerous regional organizations such as the LIBSENSE Africa and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries. One of her major achievements has been leading COAR’s Next Generation Repositories and the COAR Notify initiatives, which have set new standards and practices to enhance repositories’ functionality to meet the needs of the open science in the future, including repositories playing a more prominent role in the diamond OA ecosystem via the “Publish, Review, Curate” model of scholarly publishing.

Repositories at the Heart of Open Science and AI Innovation

Open Science needs trusted, visible, and inclusive research outputs—and repositories are key. This panel showcases the IMPACT-REPO Action Plan and highlights innovative repository services that boost research impact, build trust, and support AI-driven discovery. Join us to explore how Europe’s repositories are evolving from access points to strategic engines of open science.

There is a global consensus that open science will make research more transparent and inclusive, accelerating the advancement of knowledge. The vision of open science depends on a robust network of well-functioning repositories that not only collect, preserve, and provide access to millions of valuable research outputs but also serve as critical institutional assets. In an era where AI is reshaping research and knowledge discovery, repositories play a key strategic role as curated collections of an institution’s intellectual production, ensuring visibility, integrity, and trustworthiness of research outputs.

In March 2025, LIBER, OpenAIRE, SPARC Europe, and COAR launched IMPACT-REPO, a joint plan to promote the vital position of open access repositories in Europe’s research landscape. The plan outlines four key dimensions in which repositories contribute—boosting research impact, fostering inclusiveness, building trust, and supporting innovation.

The Action Plan illustrates the key contributions of repositories in open science and presents four compelling narratives that articulate
the growing strategic value of repositories in Europe.

This panel session will present several case studies of repositories that are offering new and innovative services- such as Publish Review Curate, cost transparency, and artificial intelligence - and are driving innovation in the open science landscape.

Panelists

Eloy Rodrigues