Supporting, Funding and Governing Open Science Infrastructures: "IRSO", a Library‑Led and Reproducible Institutional Model

Abstract

The Université Paris Nanterre is a major public university in France, serving over 35,000 students, including 1,300 PhD candidates. Around 1,200 teaching and research staff benefit from the support and training programmes offered by the University Library, which specialises in open access, open science, research data management and diamond publishing. The university has 41 research units and six structured doctoral schools covering the fields of the humanities, social sciences, law, economics, psychology, sport and engineering sciences.

 
The Université Paris Nanterre in France has made the strengthening of the digital scholarly commons a strategic priority. Since 2022, the institution has mandated its Library to design, structure and lead a dedicated financial, strategic and organisational support scheme for essential open science infrastructures, both in France, Europe and internationally. The Université Paris Nanterre thus runs a project entitled “Supporting, funding and governing open science infrastructures: “IRSO”, a library‑led institutional model scalable to consortium level and reproducible for other institutions” is fully aligned with our institution's strategic priorities in the field of open science, as adopted by the University’s Board and publicly presented on our Open Science portal. 

This “IRSO” programme constitutes one of the major pillars of the Université Paris Nanterre Open Science policy. It: 
● supports the long‑term sustainability of key infrastructures; 
● reinforces collective governance through UPN’s active participation in several national and 
international bodies; 
● promotes the open dissemination of research outputs and the implementation of responsible 
practices; 
● enables the development of concrete, beneficial services for the university Research 
community. 

This programme model, conceived and led by the University Library, contributes significantly to the institution’s visibility, as evidenced by the national recognition and external evaluations in which it is regularly highlighted. Such a programme fully addresses the objectives of Knowledge Rights 21 notably by strengthening:
● open, sustainable and barrier‑free access to knowledge; 
● the protection and valorisation of open infrastructures; 
● the capacity of university libraries to act as key actors safeguarding the rights to knowledge.

You can read more here: https://science-ouverte.parisnanterre.fr/strategie-science-ouverte/soutien-aux-infrastructures-de-la-science-ouverte  

Acknowledgment

The report is issued as part of LIBER’s participation in the Knowledge Rights 21 project, funded by Arcadia – a family charitable foundation. The Knowledge Rights 21 programme is managed by IFLA, in partnership with LIBER and SPARC Europe.