This year has marked an important moment for Open Research Information in the Netherlands. A new wave of initiatives is turning long-standing ambitions around openness, interoperability, and digital sovereignty into concrete implementation. Projects such as DURF, BROCCOLI, MORIS, and the ongoing PID-to-Portal work are not isolated experiments. Together, they point to a broader national effort to make Dutch research information more visible, reusable, and trustworthy across institutions and systems. 

In this transition, OpenAIRE has a meaningful role to play. As a European, community-governed organisation, it brings experience in building and sustaining open scholarly communication services. Through the OpenAIRE Graph and related services, it also supports the infrastructure layer needed to connect, enrich, and expose research information across institutional and national contexts. 

The real issue is not data volume, but data quality 

Across the research ecosystem, information about publications, datasets, software, researchers, affiliations, projects, and funding flows through many different systems. The question is no longer whether data exists, it is whether the available metadata is complete enough, accurate enough, and open enough to support reliable decisions. 

This is precisely the challenge addressed by the ORI Monitoring Framework, developed within the PID-to-Portal project. The framework focuses on metadata quality, persistent identifier (PID) adoption, and metadata openness, offering a way to identify gaps across sources and target interventions where they matter most.  

Importantly, it starts from real use cases. Shaped with input from Dutch signatories of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information, including universities, funders, and national infrastructures, the framework centres on three practical areas: reporting, evaluation, and analysis. Metadata quality is therefore not an abstract technical issue. It directly affects open access monitoring, institutional reporting, responsible assessment, and the ability to understand collaboration patterns and research trends. 

The Dutch priorities are becoming clear 

The Dutch ORI work has identified several priorities, including research outputs, researchers, affiliations and institutions, journals, and funding information. At the metadata level, DOIs, ORCID IDs, and ROR identifiers have emerged as especially important. 

Among these, affiliation metadata stands out as both essential and consistently problematic. Reliable monitoring depends not only on collecting outputs, but on connecting them correctly to authors, institutions, and funding contexts. This is one area where the richer relational view provided by infrastructures such as the OpenAIRE Graph can make a practical contribution. 

DURF and BROCCOLI: strengthening the infrastructure and putting it to use 

Among the projects shaping this next phase, DURF and BROCCOLI address two closely connected needs within the Dutch open research information ecosystem. 

DURF focuses on strengthening the national repository federation and the infrastructure that supports the sharing and exposure of Dutch research information. Its importance goes beyond improving workflows: by building shared capacity around open systems, it also contributes to greater resilience and digital sovereignty, reducing dependency on closed platforms while supporting alignment with wider European developments. 

If DURF strengthens the backbone, BROCCOLI focuses on making the information flowing through it more useful. Designed as a Dutch hub for open research information, it aims to create a more reusable evidence base for dashboards, monitoring, analysis, and strategic decision-making. Together, the projects support an ecosystem in which research information can be more effectively collected, connected, enriched, and reused across institutions and systems. 

Learn more about OpenAIRE’s collaboration in these projects here.  

I am pleased that the Netherlands is investing significantly in Open Science infrastructure through the DURF project. I am particularly excited about OpenAIRE’s collaboration in this initiative, as it strengthens trust in and enhances the usability of the OpenAIRE Graph. This partnership aligns with our shared mission to build reliable, interconnected open science systems.

Monitoring gaps and understanding complementarities 

One of the most promising developments in the Netherlands is that monitoring itself is starting to be treated as infrastructure. By comparing metadata across sources such as Crossref, OpenAlex, the OpenAIRE Graph, and institutional CRIS systems, the ORI Monitoring Framework can reveal gaps in identifiers, affiliations, ORCID coverage, and open access information. 

The aim is not to flatten the differences between infrastructures, but to understand where each is strongest, where information is missing, and where targeted improvements can strengthen the wider research information chain. This creates a clearer basis for coordinating action and improving the quality and reuse of research information over time.  

What comes next 

As Dutch ORI projects move forward, the key question will be practical: which combinations of infrastructures, services, and governance models can best improve metadata quality, PID coverage, openness, and reuse? 

That is where OpenAIRE can make a meaningful contribution. As an organisation, it can support collaboration, alignment, and long-term sustainability. Through the OpenAIRE Graph and related services, it can help connect Dutch research information to a wider open and interoperable ecosystem. In the Netherlands, this role is becoming increasingly concrete: not as an abstract commitment to openness, but as a contribution to the infrastructures and practices that can make open research information more robust, more reusable, and more trustworthy.