Open Science has made more research knowledge accessible than ever before. But making knowledge open is only part of the equation: the next step is ensuring that it can be responsibly discovered, connected and put to use beyond the research community. 

With this in mind, OpenAIRE has launched OpenAIRE Innovation, a new initiative bringing together its open research infrastructure, expertise and community to strengthen connections between research and innovation. It aims to help open knowledge generate wider scientific, societal and economic value, while maintaining the principles of openness, transparency and attribution that underpin Open Science. 

Connecting Open Science and innovation 

Europe has a strong research base, but the route from research results to wider uptake is not always straightforward. While EU innovation performance has increased, other global economies continue to outperform Europe, highlighting the need for stronger connections that help research results travel further.  

OpenAIRE Innovation will focus on four areas: innovation challenges, prototype incubation, technology pilots and foresight, alongside an Industry Engagement Programme supporting collaboration with AI developers, data platforms, publishers, analytics providers and legal-tech companies.  

A Steering Committee, Industry Advisory Committee and Ethics Board will help ensure that these activities remain aligned with OpenAIRE’s principles and the interests of the wider Open Science community. 

A changing landscape  

European policy is placing greater emphasis on knowledge valorisation, industry–academia collaboration and the wider use of publicly funded research. Open research infrastructures can support this shift by making research information easier to discover, connect and interpret across institutional and disciplinary boundaries.  

At the same time, AI is changing how research is accessed and reused. Researchers are increasingly turning to AI tools, while repositories face growing demand from automated crawlers: a 2025 COAR survey found that more than 90% of respondents had experienced aggressive AI crawling, with many reporting service disruption.  

These developments raise an important question for the Open Science community: how can research remain open and reusable while ensuring that access is transparent, attributable and sustainable? OpenAIRE Innovation creates a space to explore such questions collectively rather than leaving individual researchers, institutions and repositories to respond alone. 

From priorities to practical action  

OpenAIRE Innovation puts into practice priorities set out in the OpenAIRE Strategy 2026–2028, particularly around responsible AI, legal clarity for Open Science and the development of a sustainable innovation ecosystem. 

Building on OpenAIRE’s existing infrastructure, the OpenAIRE Graph, and expertise in interoperability, provenance and rights, the initiative will support activities ranging from prototype development and AI experimentation to shared approaches to licensing and collaborations around concrete innovation challenges. 

Some of this work is already underway. Together with French AI company Alien Intelligence, OpenAIRE has developed a connector enabling AI tools and autonomous agents to access information from the OpenAIRE Graph while maintaining provenance to the underlying research record. 

Alongside this, the AI Bots and Repositories Working Group is bringing together members of the repository community to develop practical recommendations for managing automated access, including work around OpenREL and machine-readable approaches to rights, attribution and reuse. 

Value across the research ecosystem  

OpenAIRE Innovation aims to create value across the research and innovation ecosystem: 

• Researchers: New routes to develop ideas, experiment with prototypes and engage with innovation partners, while helping shape how AI tools interact with trustworthy, provenance-rich research information.
• Institutions, repositories and research-performing organisations: A collective approach to issues such as AI access, licensing and reuse, alongside better visibility of intellectual assets, expertise and research investment across institutional boundaries.
• Policymakers and funders: A stronger evidence base for understanding how research moves into wider use and monitoring emerging approaches to knowledge valorisation.
• Industry: Access to authoritative, machine-readable scholarly information with clearer provenance and rights information, alongside opportunities to develop and test products and services with the research community. 

Importantly, this exchange is intended to work in both directions: industry can benefit from open research, while collaboration can return expertise, tools and new knowledge to the research ecosystem. 

Keeping openness at the core

OpenAIRE Innovation builds on a simple idea: when research is open, connected and reusable, its value can extend far beyond its original context. 

By bringing researchers, infrastructures, policymakers and industry into a shared framework, OpenAIRE aims to help turn that potential into shared value, while keeping openness, attribution, transparency and community benefit at its core.