NAIF: Responsible Research Assessment and Metadata Quality for Interoperable Research Infrastructures in Switzerland
Dr Moritz Mähr1,2- ETH Zurich, Research Analytics Services, Zurich, Switzerland
- Digital Humanities, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Overview
NAIF (National Approach for Interoperable Repositories and Findable Research Results) is a swissuniversities co-funded collaboration between eight Swiss higher education institutions that strengthens interoperability and metadata quality across Swiss institutional repositories.
Responsible indicators and interoperable repositories require the same curated metadata foundation.
Fragmented repository practices make national discovery, monitoring, and analysis difficult. This poster connects Track 1 on responsible research assessment with Track 4 on academic metadata quality to show why assessment reform and repository interoperability should be treated as one shared infrastructure problem.
Evidence base
Track 1: Responsible assessment
- Workshop with 27 stakeholders from Swiss higher education institutions, policy bodies, and the wider scientometrics community.
- Discussion of current indicator use, implementation barriers, and institutional needs.
- Framed by DORA, CoARA, and the Leiden Manifesto.
Track 4: Metadata quality
- Workshops with repository managers, data stewards, and open science specialists from across Switzerland.
- Focus on organisational, researcher, funding, and Open Access metadata.
- Prioritisation of practical actions for curation, workflows, and cross-institution coordination.
Key messages
| Aspect | Insight |
|---|---|
| Reform momentum | Swiss institutions increasingly align with DORA and CoARA, but implementation remains uneven. |
| Responsible indicators | Quantitative indicators must be transparent, contextual, and fair. |
| Preferred use | Organisational monitoring is generally more appropriate than individual benchmarking. |
| Metadata priorities | ROR and ORCID alignment, funding metadata, and Open Access metadata are the most actionable improvement areas. |
Next steps
Qualitative survey with research assessment and repository actors to map practices, expectations, and tensions around indicator use and metadata workflows.
By the end of 2026, NAIF will deliver practical guidance and governance proposals for Swiss repository interoperability.
Contact
NAIF Tracks 1 and 4
Responsible research assessment and academic metadata
naif@library.ethz.ch | https://eth-library.github.io/naif/
Consortium and funder
Q1: Why connect assessment and metadata?
- Repositories increasingly support discovery, open science monitoring, policy reporting, and evaluation practices.
- Incomplete or inconsistent records reduce findability and weaken interpretation.
- Metadata quality is therefore not only a technical issue; it is a precondition for responsible research assessment.
Q2: Which metadata families matter most?
These four families provide the contextual backbone for repositories, discovery services, and assessment workflows.
Q3: What did Swiss stakeholders emphasise?
- Indicators must be transparent, context-specific, and fair.
- Quantitative metrics should complement expert judgement, not replace it.
- Organisational monitoring is generally preferable to individual performance ranking.
- Data quality is non-negotiable: source transparency, documentation, and curation are prerequisites for meaningful indicators.
- Academic libraries are central because they maintain trusted metadata and document its limits.
Q4: What can academic libraries do now?
- Improve institutional name disambiguation and ROR alignment.
- Strengthen ORCID integration in repository and CRIS workflows.
- Standardise the capture of funding and Open Access metadata at deposit stage.
- Maintain shared mappings for organisational hierarchies and local structures.
- Connect metadata curation more closely with local assessment and reporting needs.
Conclusion and key takeaways
NAIF treats metadata stewardship and responsible indicators as one shared infrastructure challenge. Better organisational, researcher, funding, and Open Access metadata improve discovery, support transparent monitoring, and make evaluation more fair, transparent, and interpretable.
1 Libraries curate infrastructure for both visibility and assessment.
2 Responsible indicators depend on trustworthy metadata.
3 Four metadata families provide essential context.
4 Shared governance through a national working group can sustain quality beyond the project period.