e-Infrastructures Austria

In January 2014, the three-year partner project entitled e-Infrastructures Austria was initiated. The overall objective of this project is the coordinated establishment and development of repository infrastructures for digital resources in research throughout Austria. The initial situation at the 25 participating scientific institutions is very heterogeneous. Through networking and pooling of expertise and resources, a network of knowledge and professional competence is created, which fosters the development of repositories, enables the expansion of technical systems and services and addresses issues introduced by these institutions. In various working groups, events and workshops, and with the involvement of libraries, IT services and researchers at a local and national level, an exchange of experience will then take place to focus on technical, organizational, legal and substantive issues. e-Infrastructures Austria is intended to be a long-term model of inter-networked repositories. Emphasis is particularly placed on the handling of complex data such as research data and multimedia content. In the midst of the current research landscape involving disciplinary research data repositories and data centres, a comprehensive and efficient infrastructure is provided by institutional repositories as well as repositories that often have a multidisciplinary orientation. These enables the increased visibility of the research and reputation of the individual institutions, the preservation of digital objects, as well as the continued availability, representation and diverse forms of reuse. Last but not least, the repositories support the implementation of Open Access policies and offer a very secure framework for dealing with digital resources