In a significant move to bolster Netherlands' (NL) research infrastructure, Open Science NL has recently awarded €35 million to 45 projects dedicated to making scholarly data, software, and publications more accessible and transparent. OpenAIRE is pleased to be working alongside SURF in two of these strategic four-year initiatives: DURF and BROCCOLI.

These projects represent a collaborative effort to move away from fragmented systems and toward a more resilient, sovereign, and community-governed infrastructure.

DURF: a federated backbone for research sovereignty

The Dutch Repository Federation (DURF) project aims to create a robust, unified infrastructure for Dutch research output. Currently, over 70 institutional repositories and CRIS systems across the Netherlands operate without a unified governance structure, leading to gaps in metadata quality, preservation, and visibility.

OpenAIRE’s role in DURF is integrated across several technical layers to ensure Dutch research is globally discoverable and meets high international standards:

• OpenAIRE PROVIDE: This will serve as the core metadata harvester and validator, allowing repository managers to ensure their systems comply with international CERIF standards and the specific Dutch application profile.
• OpenAIRE Graph & Broker: The OpenAIRE Graph will power the aggregation of data, while the OpenAIRE Broker will feed enriched metadata (such as ROR, ORCID, and DOI identifiers) back into local institutional systems.
• Netherlands Research Portal: Powered by OpenAIRE CONNECT, the portal will be enhanced with new functionalities, including an "expert finder" and Single Sign-On (SSO) integration via SURFconext, to better showcase Dutch research excellence.

By integrating these systems to establish shared governance and improve metadata quality, DURF ensures that the Dutch research community retains digital sovereignty over its data while maximizing its global impact.

BROCCOLI: opening the doors to research information

The BROCCOLI project (the Dutch hub for open research information) focuses on creating a transparent environment for evidence-based decision-making within research. It builds upon the existing UKBsis infrastructure, which already which already harvests data from the OpenAIRE Graph to host information on over 500,000 Dutch research articles.

While previous systems had limited accessibility, BROCCOLI will be fully open, enabling the community to:

• Monitor publisher deals with greater accuracy and transparency.
• Facilitate responsible research evaluation and assessments.
• Support large-scale Open Science monitoring for institutions, funders, and policymakers.

OpenAIRE acts as both a data provider and a recipient in this ecosystem, as BROCCOLI will feed enriched, ready-to-use research information back into global sources like the OpenAIRE Graph.

"Our collaboration with OpenAIRE in DURF and BROCCOLI links national Open Science ambitions directly to the European research information ecosystem. In DURF, the OpenAIRE Graph underpins the aggregation and enrichment of Dutch research information, with OpenAIRE PROVIDE enabling CRIS systems and repositories to manage harvesting, reuse enriched metadata, and retain it within their own trusted systems, strengthening resilience through a federated approach. The Netherlands Research Portal, powered by OpenAIRE CONNECT, brings together more than 70 repositories and CRIS systems to support discovery and reuse, while the enriched metadata also enables the National Library of the Netherlands to collect and preserve full texts and metadata in the KB eDepot for long-term access. In BROCCOLI, the OpenAIRE Graph is combined with other sources to enrich and feed back trusted Dutch research information into the ecosystem." Maurice Vanderfeesten, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

What this means for the Dutch research community

For researchers, these projects mean higher visibility and easier preservation of their work. For institutions, they reduce dependency on commercial providers and lower the administrative burden on repository managers through automated workflows. By aligning national infrastructure with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and global indexes, we are ensuring that Dutch research is not only preserved but actively used to drive innovation.

As Hans de Jonge, Director of Open Science NL, noted, providing these digital tools is essential because "if you don’t provide the digital tools... you can’t expect researchers to do Open Science". OpenAIRE is excited to work alongside SURF and the Dutch research community to make this vision a reality over the next four years.