A Full House at NORFest 2025: Shaping the Next Phase of Open Research Monitoring in Ireland

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 better support the Irish research ecosystem.

Group discussions spanned key dimensions of Open Research such as data, software, Open Access and infrastructures, assessment, impact, and skills, revealing both the breadth of indicators already available and the opportunities for deeper insight.

In more complex research products, such as data and software, participants explored indicators that can help assess metadata quality, which will expose the issues that need to be addressed by the community, including links to related research outputs.

In assessment and impact, the conversation turned to the behavioural implications of monitoring systems and the need to encourage diverse pathways to impact rather than reinforcing narrow incentive structures.

On the skills front, the group discussed the competencies required to design and sustain robust monitoring systems, from data stewardship and metadata curation to analytical interpretation and policy alignment.

Finally, in NORFes,t an important takeaway emerged around infrastructural and funding disparities across RPOs. Participants stressed that monitoring efforts should take these differences into account, recognising, for instance, that some institutions may lack resources for persistent identifiers or repository upgrades, even though these are essential for visibility and interoperability.

The workshop's insights will inform the next phase of Ireland's National Open Access Monitor, ensuring that it continues to evolve as an evidence-based and community-driven instrument, powered by the OpenAIRE Graph and connected to the wider European Open Science landscape through EOSC.