IDSI has become an OpenAIRE member

We are excited to announce that IDSI has become an OpenAIRE member, an open Scholarly Communication Infrastructure, which creates and operates services for Open Science.

IDSI is one of the four new members, next to TU Azerbaijan, Institute for Scientific and Technical Information – TECHINFORMI of the Georgian Technical University, and TU Graz (Austria)! 

These institutions have joined the community of 50+ OpenAIRE organisations – a strong network of peers on Open Science who share their knowledge and experiences amongst each other. For our new members, this is one of the key aspects as to why they joined OpenAIRE. Igor Cojocaru, Director of IDSI (Information Society Development Institute) in the Republic of Moldova, says: “With expertise from abroad, we seek to increase awareness for Open Science among decision makers in Moldova”. ISDI is an application-oriented research institute that already promotes Open Science principles within the national scientific community and operates e-infrastructures. With the support of OpenAIRE, ISDI aims to make their databases interoperable with European infrastructures, e.g. the OpenAIRE Research Graph.

Making their Open Access Repositories accessible and interoperable is also of high importance for our colleagues from TU Azerbaijan. At the same time, they aim to promote Open Access policies in their country and disseminate Open Access and Open Science practices among researchers in Azerbaijan. These activities require training, which is one of OpenAIRE’s key fields of expertise. “With the support of OpenAIRE, we aim to strengthen institutions and create repositories in Azerbaijan. We want to increase Open Access publishing in our country and connect our researchers to the European scientific community”, says Khayala Hajiyeva, Director of the Library Information Center at TU Azerbaijan.

In Georgia, where the third new member, the Institute for Scientific and Technical Information – TECHINFORMI of the Georgian Technical University is based, Open Science is still in its early stages. “Our goal, amongst others, is to make our local databases comply to FAIR standards and integrate them into European research infrastructures”, explains Marina Razmadze, Deputy Director at TECHINFORMI, which serves as the largest provider of information services in Georgia and constitutes a multidisciplinary research institute. The process of developing a national Open Science policy in Georgia is already underway and young ambassadors promote Open Science principles in the research community.

Finally, the fourth new member, which is also the second institution from Austria to join OpenAIRE: Graz University of Technology. Founded in 1811, it is Austria’s oldest technical university. An essential part of TU Graz’ strategic alignment is international cooperation – which was the main motivation to become a part of the OpenAIRE community, as Ilire Hasani-Mavriqi, Head of the RDM Team at TU Graz, lays out: “When it comes to implementing Open Science, it doesn’t make sense to reinvent the wheel. Instead, we want to look at how we can make use of existing infrastructures and services – such as those offered by OpenAIRE.”

OpenAIRE is thrilled to be a part of its new members’ Open Science journeys and will support them on their way to becoming national reference points for training, policies and services – because together, we can achieve more.