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Saturday, January 26, 2008

Report on the first DRIVER summit

Norbert Lossau, First DRIVER Summit demonstrates the advancement of the European repository network and lays out further actions, DRIVER, January 25, 2008.  Excerpt:

On 16 and 17 January 2008, DRIVER II successfully carried out its first Summit in Goettingen, Germany....

In his wrap-up speech, Norbert Lossau summarised the presentations and discussions in a five-point conclusion:

  1. The conditions to populate repositories with content and to implement a coherent European and global digital repository based eInfrastructure are more favourable than ever before. The Council’s Conclusions on Scientific Information, the European Research Council Open Access mandate and the current preparation of an Open Access mandate for all EC funded research publications can draw from the existing infrastructure efforts which must be accelerated in the coming months.
  2. DRIVER II, with its recent focus on research publications, is now moving towards research data by addressing so-called enhanced publications (publications linked to datasets and vice versa). It is instrumental that DRIVER II works together with disciplinary communities, like disciplinary research institutes (such as CERN), disciplinary projects (such as those funded by the EC’s “Geant & eInfastructure” Unit and in the ESFRI context) and, where existing, learned societies on a European or international level.
  3. Although funded by the EC, DRIVER II must be open to international efforts and collaborate on a global scale. This point was also clearly underlined by the EC representatives as part of the Commission’s eInfrastructure strategy.
  4. Technology is the means to manage content repositories as a virtual content resource. Combining publications with research data and other digital objects requires additional research and development.
  5. The change of culture has been a frequently stressed requirement for the new eInfrastructure. Depositing open access publications, sharing datasets with a wider community and deploying existing technology instead of “re-inventing” them are some of the issues which need to be addressed in the near future....