Trends in Policy, Discovery, and Innovation

The COAR Annual Conference 2025 took place in Tokyo, Japan on May 12-14, 2025. The conference was jointly organized by COAR, JPCOAR and the National Institute of Informatics (NII) and brought together international and Japanese participants to share experiences, identify priority activities across our communities, and contribute to the development of a shared vision for the future of repositories. 

Read a summary of the conference outcomes.

Conference Presentations

Monday, May 12

Small group discussion about scaling multilingualism across the global repository network

Dealing with AI bots in repositories Introduction to session and results of COAR survey – Kathleen Shearer, COAR Current experiences of “friendly” network services – Petr Knoth, CORE Dynamic Bots Blocker, Lautaro Matas, LA Referencia The Tale of IRD Friendly Robot, Paul Walk, COAR / Antleaf Discussion: What approaches can repositories take to limit the harms of AI bots while remaining open to desirable value-added services?

Overview of Japan’s scholarly communication landscape Introducing “Towards OA 2025”, Japan’s new policy to ensure the immediate open access of publicly funded academic outputs Collaboration across major stakeholder communities: NII, JPCOAR, and the Cabinet Office Shin-ichi Akaike, Cabinet Office of Japan Kazutsuna Yamaji, National Institute of Informatics Shigeki Sugita, Japan Consortium for Open Access Repositories

Exploring some COAR community resources COAR Resource Type Controlled Vocabulary – Isabel Bernal, CSIC Implementing COAR Resource Type Vocabulary in Turkey – Gultekin Gurdal, Izmir Institute of Technology  The COAR International Repository Directory – Paul Walk, COAR / Antleaf

Tuesday, May 13

Opening Talk: Open Science in Spain: From Local to Global – Isabel Bernal, CSIC

Top trends for Open Science around the world European Union – Eloy Rodrigues, University of Minho Canada – Barbara Kern, Queens University Latin America – Lautaro Matas, La Referencia India – Devika Medalli, INFLIBNET Africa – Iryna Kuchma, EIFL Africa – Omo Oaiya, WACREN / LIBSENSE Czechia – Michal Podhoranyi and Lukas Vojacek, Technical University of Ostrava

Current state of Open Access in Japan: Exploring the future from diverse perspectives Fumi Kaneko, Kyushu University / Asuka Muranishi, Nagoya University/ Kyoka Miyai, University of Tokyo Masahito Matsumoto, Okayama University Jun Shintake, The University of Electro-communications Keita Kurabe, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

Top trends for Open Science around the world United States – Jennifer Beamer, United States Repository Network Turkey – Gultekin Gurdal, Izmir Institute of Technology United Kingdom – Petr Knoth, Open University South Korea – Hyekyong Hwang and/or Sa-kwang Song, KISTI Australia – Martin Borchert, University of New South Wales France -Sylvie Rousset, CNRS

Tribute to Kazu Yamaji

Wednesday, May 14

Visibility of research outputs in repositories What is possible when repositories have really good quality metadata? – Kristi Holmes, Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute, Chicago The OpenAIRE Graph and developing national open science monitors – Paolo Manghi PIDs and global inclusiveness: developing solutions to address current inequities – Omo Oaiya, West and Central African Research And Education Network and Lautaro Matas, LA Referencia

Strategic discussion about enhancing the role of repositories in the  open access landscape: Open discussion with Yes/No flips Moderator: Sho Sato Tomomi Ojiro (University of Tokyo) Shuhei Nomura (Yokohama National University) JPCOAR Local Organising Committee members Isabel Bernal, CSIC

Repository innovation: what next is on the horizon? COAR Notify and the “Publish, Review, Curate” model of publishing – Eloy Rodrigues, University of Minho and Paul Walk, COAR / Antleaf Artificial Intelligence (AI): The impact and opportunities of artificial intelligence – Petr Knoth, CORE and Martin Klein, COAR / Pacific Northwest National Laboratory