HAL: Strengthening Connections Between Publications, Data, and Software in the French National Open Science Ecosystem

HAL, the multidisciplinary French national open archive, hosts over 1.45 million academic documents, including articles, preprints, conference papers, and more. As a pillar of the national open science policy, HAL plays a critical role in promoting accessibility and visibility of research outputs.

A key initiative of the second French plan for Open Science is to create an integrated ecosystem linking publications, research data, and software. This involves strengthening the connections between HAL, Recherche Data Gouv, and Software Heritage. Our work has focused on developing tools to manage the relationships among these diverse research objects, enhancing their visibility within HAL, and supporting their dissemination across other repositories via the COAR Notify protocol.

This effort was undertaken as part of the HALiance project, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR 21-ESRE-0047). It combines technical innovations with a commitment to fostering interoperability and discoverability within the global open science landscape.

In this presentation, we will outline the development of this new service, detail the technical challenges addressed during its implementation, and share early user feedback following its launch in early 2025.