From: Kathleen Shearer <[log in to unmask]>
 Date: Mon, 15 May 2017 09:21:44 -0400

Sorry for the cross posting

International Accord for Repository Networks

Venice, Italy

On May 8, 2017, several regional and national repository networks and
stakeholder groups formally endorsed an international accord that will
lead to the greater alignment of repository networks around the world.
The aim of the accord is to improve cooperation between national and
regional repository networks by identifying common principles and
areas of collaboration that will lead to the development of global
services.

Repositories play a fundamental and expanding role in supporting open
access and open science, and there are thousands of repositories
deployed around the world that provide access to research articles,
data and other types of content. Increasingly, these repositories are
connected through regional and national repository networks that
define standards for their communities and offer valuable services on
top of repository content. However, given the international nature of
research, it is critical that these repository networks work together
to ensure they are interoperable, while also supporting the unique
needs of their local communities.

The international accord, developed by COAR, the Confederation of Open
Access Repositories, will foster closer relationships between the
regional networks and act as a framework for undertaking specific
activities including metadata exchange across networks, the adoption
of common standards and APIs, and implementation of common
functionalities. The accord was signed by network representatives from
Australasia, Canada, China, Europe, Latin America, Japan, South
Africa, and the United States.

“We share a common vision of a distributed, community-based open
science infrastructure around the world”, says Eloy Rodrigues,
chairman of COAR. “But to achieve this vision, we need to work
together.” Kathleen Shearer, COAR Executive Director says, “This
accord brings us one step closer to our goal of transforming the
system to make it more research-centric, open to and supportive of
innovation, while also collectively managed by the scholarly
community.”

In the coming weeks, COAR, along with the signatories, will work to
define the various levels of collaboration, with the eventual aim of
positioning repositories as the foundation of a global knowledge
commons.

The accord is available here:

https://www.coar-repositories.org/activities/advocacy-leadership/aligning-repository-networks-across-regions/

For more information, please contact Kathleen Shearer:

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