OpenAIREplus (2nd Generation of Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe) was launched in Pisa in early December. The 30 month project, funded by the EC 7th Framework Programme, will work in tandem with OpenAIRE, extending the mission further to facilitate access to the entire Open Access scientific production of the European Research Area, providing cross-links from publications to data and funding schemes. This large-scale project brings together 41 pan-European partners, including three cross-disciplinary research communities.

The project will capitalise on the successful efforts of the OpenAIRE project which is rapidly moving from implementing the EU Open Access Pilot project into a service phase, enabling researchers to deposit their FP7 and ERA funded research publications into Open Access repositories. The current publication repository networks will be expanded to attract data providers from domain specific scientific areas. "The participatory design of OpenAIREplus will seamlessly guide the researcher to Open Access research data. The experienced consortium will pave the way to support the research work of European scientists and open up the road to multi-disciplinary science" says Dr. Norbert Lossau, Scientific Coordinator of OpenAIREplus and Director of Göttingen State and University Library, Germany.

Creating a robust, participatory service for the cross-linking of peer-reviewed scientific publications and associated datasets is the principal goal of OpenAIREplus. As scholarly communication touches upon many disciplines, the project's horizontal outreach will facilitate collaboration across data infrastructures, providing information to scientists, non-scientists as well as to providers of value-added services. The project will establish an e-Infrastructure to harvest, enrich and store the metadata of Open Access scientific datasets. Innovative underlying technical structures will be deployed to support the management of and inter-linking between associated scientific data.

Access to and deposit of linked publications via the OpenAIRE portal will be supported by a Help Desk, and OpenAIRE's collaborative networking structure will be extended to promote the concept of open enhanced publications among user communities. Liaison offices in each of the project's 31 European countries work to support the needs of researchers in Europe. The project will also actively leverage its international connections to contribute to common standards, data issues and interoperability on a global level.

Contact:

Prof. Mike Chatzopoulos, Project Coordinator, University of Athens

Prof. Norbert Lossau, Scientific Coordinator, Göttingen State and University Library

Dr. Donatella Castelli, Technical Coordinator, CNR/ISTI