The challenge of measuring what truly counts How can a country, and specifically its academic community, truly understand the impact of its scholarly research? The question is more complex than it seems, especially when the final research products are scattered across multiple platforms, resulting in a picture that is often incomplete and difficult to compare. Greece, through the Hellenic Academic Libraries Link (HEAL-Link), addresses this problem with an ambitious new infrastructure: ABACUS (Ac...

Simply being open is not enough; infrastructure must also be enduring. The Open Science movement stands at a critical juncture. While the principle of making research outputs "open" is now widely accepted as a prerequisite for progress, the true challenge remains: achieving long-term sustainability for the core infrastructures that make this openness possible.  This was the central question explored at the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information's recent Working Group 5 session o...

On 24 November 2025, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) and the Athena Research Center (ARC) brought together members of the Greek research community for an event dedicated to the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information. Hosted at the Law School Library's Small Amphitheatre, the gathering reaffirmed the growing momentum in Greece toward more transparent, interoperable, and community-driven research information systems. The evening opened with insights from Bianc...

This blog was jointly written with Elli Papadopoulou. In Greece and Sweden, emergency departments face a common challenge: patients arriving with ambiguous symptoms that could signal either minor issues or life-threatening conditions. Doctors at AHEPA Hospital in Thessaloniki and hospitals using the CLEOS system in Sweden have been collecting rich triage data, vital signs, symptoms, medical histories, but sharing and jointly analyzing these datasets has been nearly impossible. The data contain s...

The euroCRIS Strategic Membership Meeting 2025 in İzmir brought together a diverse community of research information professionals, infrastructure providers, and policy makers to reflect on the evolving landscape of research information management. A central theme running throughout the event was the understanding that trustworthy research information does not emerge organically; it must be intentionally designed into our infrastructures, policies, and workflows. OpenAIRE participated in the eve...

The Slovak Open Science Forum conference was held in the Palffy palace, in the heart of Bratislava, this year. It was organized by Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information under the patronage of UNESCO. The conference was attended by over 70 participants. It hosted speakers from the Czech Republic, Croatia, France, Netherlands and Slovakia. The conference brings the latest information in different areas of open science, including open access to research data, research data managemen...

At this year's OSFair at CERN, the workshop "Making Impact Visible: Storytelling with Open Science Impact Indicators" invited participants to go beyond numbers and explore the human stories behind Open Science metrics. Instead of treating indicators as technical checkboxes, the session approached them as narrative tools, vehicles for understanding how Open Science practices create real, meaningful change. The session opened with Tereza Szybisty, who introduced the aims of the workshop:...

The OpenAIRE FAIR Research Data Management (RDM) Bootcamp for Data Stewards marked another milestone in building a strong, connected community of early-career data professionals ready to advance Open Science in their institutions. Hosted on OpenPlato, this intensive four-day learning experience combined live sessions, applied exercises, peer discussions, and daily self-evaluations to strengthen participants' confidence and practical skills across all stages of the research data lifecycle. Aims a...

It was a full house at NORFest 2025 in Dublin, where OpenAIRE, IReL, and the NORF projects co-hosted a hands-on, discussion-driven workshop on the next phase of open research monitoring in Ireland. The session brought together representatives from research performing organisations (RPOs), including librarians and data stewards, and other Open Science practitioners for a lively, interactive exchange on what we measure well, what remains difficult to capture, and how monitoring can bette...

Bulgaria continues to make significant strides in implementing Open Science policies and infrastructures, as highlighted in a recent national paper prepared by leading experts in the field. The paper outlines the country's latest developments, challenges, and next steps in strengthening open and responsible research practices, all of which were presented and discussed during the 16th National Information Day on Open Science, Open Data, Open Access, and the Bulgarian Open Science Cloud, held on&n...

The fifth Open Science Fair (OSFair), OpenAIRE's flagship biennial event co-organised with the CERN Open Science Office, brought the global Open Science community together at the Science Gateway at CERN in Geneva from 15 to 17 September 2025 for three inspiring days of collaboration and exchange. Held under the theme "Fusing Forces – Accelerating Open Science through Collaboration," the Fair became a vibrant hub of ideas, debate, and innovation - a space where infrastructures, policies, communit...

On 18–19 September 2025, OpenAIRE members gathered in Geneva for our 16th General Assembly. The two days were filled with conversation, reflection and the unmistakable sense of purpose that comes from working together towards something bigger. This year's meeting was not just an update on progress, but a space for exchange between members, the Executive Board and the OpenAIRE office, a moment to pause, look at where we stand, and decide together where we want to go next.   New leadership, s...

From paper licences to machine-readable rights The Open Science Fair 2025, hosted at CERN's Science Gateway, brought together leading voices from research infrastructures, funders, and data communities to explore one of the most pressing challenges in the age of AI and federated science: how can we make rights and responsibilities as interoperable as the data they govern? The session "Introducing OpenREL: Rights Expression Languages for Open Science and International Data Spaces – A Practitioner...

As the research landscape evolves, the need for skilled data stewards who can support FAIR, ethical, and Open Science, aligned data practices has never been more urgent. To meet this need, OpenAIRE, in collaboration with DANS, University of Minho (UMinho), University of Latvia (VPC), and University of Belgrade (VINCA), is launching a comprehensive FAIR RDM Bootcamp for Data Stewards this October. This four-day hybrid programme blends expert-led live workshops, real-world case scenarios, and self...

In the era of Open Science, sharing research data has become increasingly common – to a large degree driven by funder requirements but often made possible by services and infrastructure offered by universities and Non-Profit Organizations, such as OpenAIRE. However, while more data are available than ever, finding it remains a challenge. Researchers often face dead ends, vague metadata, and scattered repositories. The FAIR principles —Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable— describe a...

We're bringing you the key takeaways from the recent international conference "Open Science: Monitoring Progress, Assessing Impact," which took place on July 7–8, 2025, at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris and online. This two-day event brought together global experts, policymakers, and Open Science practitioners to explore state‑of‑the‑art approaches and future directions of how we monitor and assess the impact of Open Science. Organized by UNESCO, OpenAIRE, PathOS, EOSC Track, and the Open Science ...

By Zenia Xenou (OpenAIRE) & Provost Lottie (CNR) fteval Journal for Research and Technology Policy Evaluation, Issue #57 A Step Forward in Rethinking How We Evaluate Researchers The reform of research assessment has become a cornerstone of policy action in the European Research Area. In a time where the scientific landscape is rapidly evolving, with more collaboration, interdisciplinarity, and societal engagement than ever before, traditional methods of evaluation are falling behind. Ov...

At ISSI 2025 in Yerevan, Natalia Manola and Zenia Xenou from OpenAIRE introduced MyResearchFolio provided by OpenAIRE, its new pilot service designed to support the ongoing shift toward responsible research assessment. The conference, hosted this year in Armenia, brought together leading voices in scientometrics and information science for in-depth discussions on indicators, research assessment, and the transformative role of AI in researcher and evaluation workflows. It was a real pleasure...

From June 3–6, 2025, the IASSIST community gathered in Bristol, UK, for a landmark event- IASSIST at 50, hosted by the University of the West of England. With the theme "Bridging oceans, harbouring data & anchoring the future," the conference celebrated five decades of advancing social science data services, technology, and professional collaboration. Participants from around the globe explored the evolving landscape of research data management, open science, and responsible research as...

Key Takeaways from the CoARA1–EC–ENRIO-EDI-TUM Conference (Brussels, 2 June 2025) Setting the SceneOn 2 June 2025, stakeholders from across the globe gathered in Brussels and online for the high-level conference "Advancing Responsible Research Assessment for Funders in the European Digital Space. A dialogue on ethics, integrity, and open infrastructure." The event addressed the urgent need to reform research assessment systems in light of rapid digital transformation, artificial intelligenc...