What Switzerland Can Learn from Other Countries: Review of the event “From Policy to Practice: Building a National Open Research Information Framework in Switzerland”
International case studies show governance and collaboration models relevant for Switzerland.
Dr Melanie Röthlisberger 
Originally published (12 November 2025) at: Zurich University Library blog
How can we create an open research infrastructure in Switzerland that makes the entire research output of Switzerland visible? This question was explored at the event “From Policy to Practice: Building a National Open Research Information Framework in Switzerland,” which took place on Wednesday, November 5, 2025. The main part of the event focused on three reports from Denmark, the Netherlands, and Finland.
Why are we discussing this?
The background: Although institutional repositories exist at the local level in Switzerland, there is currently no networked overview (“hub”) at the national level that makes Switzerland’s entire research output visible and accessible for reuse. This is precisely where the NAIF project (National Approach for Interoperable Repositories and Findable Research Results), co-financed by swissuniversities, comes in. One work package of this project is now investigating how other European countries have approached such a joint hub, under what conditions they have achieved coordination and collaboration among institutional repositories at the national level, and what challenges they have had to overcome.
International inputs — What can we learn?
The event offered exciting insights from three countries: Denmark, the Netherlands, and Finland. The presentation slides can now be downloaded from the Zenodo community of the NAIF project.
Denmark: Using a communication campaign to bring about cultural change
Kira Stine Hansen (Copenhagen University Library, Royal Danish Library) and Michael Svendsen (Copenhagen University Library) provided insights into the complex and, in some cases, functionally parallel research infrastructure landscape in Denmark. Copenhagen University Library thereby plays a leading role in governance and infrastructure for Open Science. The cultural shift towards Open Science has largely been made possible thanks to a forward-looking communication and marketing strategy that involves researchers in the ongoing decision-making processes. The core message of their input: Collaboration is necessary because only together can we make a difference and be resilient. And while institutions collaborate, it is important to keep the focus on the “why” and not deviate into the discussions of the “how”. A unified, consistent approach is just as important as the alignment of Open Science policies and cultural values.
The Netherlands: Secondary publication right without administration for researchers
Arjan Schalken (Network of Dutch University Libraries and the Royal Library) and Wenneke Meerstadt (Utrecht University Library) also emphasized the importance of a uniform approach to implementing a national secondary publication right at the local level in the Netherlands. Under the motto “You share – we take care,” the library team entered researchers’ publications into the local repository in two initial phases. The implementation project is currently in its successful third phase (opt-out phase, in which researchers must notify the library if they do NOT wish to make use of the secondary publication right). Six success factors have contributed to the successful implementation in the Netherlands:
- An executable (concrete) guideline was drawn up with the help of one (!) legal expert and presented to all institutions for implementation.
- The university administrations were committed because they had to report to the ministry.
- The right of secondary publication empowered senior management and libraries to archive and publish the institution’s own publications.
- All institutions agreed that they would stand together in the event of legal action by publishers (no legal action has been taken to date).
- Pilot projects (phase 1) helped generate support from researchers, identify adjustments for internal workflows, and gauge the reactions of publishers.
- The administrative burden on researchers was extremely low. The repository managers took on most of the work.
Finland: Making research visible, interoperable, and reusable with research.fi
Jukka Hapaamäki (Ministry of Education & Culture) and Hanna-Mari Puuska (CSC – IT Center for Science) concluded by reporting on the Finnish research information hub research.fi, which provides an overview of all research output from Finnish universities. This platform was created by CSC on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Culture as a control mechanism for university funding. The publication figures, which are automatically compiled from local data sources, are particularly impressive, while other information – such as information on research data – still appears relatively sparse (which is partly due to the limited availability of information on research data).
The national catalog provides information on publications, research data, infrastructures, researchers, projects, research organizations, and groups, and it obtains its data from the institutions themselves as well as from research funding agencies, data services, ORCID, and national registers.
Key take-aways
After the three keynote speeches, the event concluded with a short discussion round. The most important stakeholders in the Swiss landscape had their say: it was once again made clear that collaborative and coordinated efforts are necessary, because only together can we achieve the goals we have set ourselves. Institutions should also not be afraid to learn from each other – as the example of the Netherlands has shown, this contributes significantly to success. And while some stakeholders already operate similar research information platforms (SNSF, SWITCH), they nevertheless expressed interest in a national project. Meanwhile, it is still unclear how such a national platform should be structured: should it be more of a monitoring tool for Open Science or a steering instrument for strategic decision-makers in the higher education and research system (e.g., university management, but also research funding bodies such as SNSF and/or SERI)? Should it be a platform or catalog that provides metadata or a repository where materials can also be stored (similar to institutional repositories)? Further discussions will be held in the coming months to find a solution for Switzerland – together.
Download presentations: from the NAIF-Zenodo community
About the project: The NAIF project (2025–2026) is supported by eight Swiss universities and co-financed by swissuniversities. The project aims to enable greater interoperability and standardization between institutional repositories in Switzerland. The project is led by ETH Zurich / ETH Library. Other participants include: UZH / Zurich University Library, EPFL, ZHAW, PH St. Gallen, University of Fribourg, University of Neuchâtel, and the University of St. Gallen.