Building Sustainable Scholarly Commons: How Université Paris Nanterre’s IRSO Programme Shows Libraries Can Lead Open Science
This blog is part of a 7-part series produced within the LIBER Cascading Grants project, part of LIBER’s participation in Knowledge Rights 21.
By Elise Breton (ORCHID) and Cécile Swiatek Cassafieres (ORCHID), Université Paris Nanterre
This blog is based on the report, “Supporting, Funding and Governing Open Science Infrastructures: “IRSO”, a Library‑Led and Reproducible Institutional Model,” available on Zenodo: Read the Full Report on Zenodo
Open science depends on a growing ecosystem of shared infrastructures: repositories, discovery tools, identifiers, metadata services, publishing platforms, open-source software and research networks. Yet many of these essential services remain financially fragile despite their importance to researchers, institutions and society.
At Université Paris Nanterre, France, a simple question emerged in 2021: if universities depend on these infrastructures every day, how can they contribute actively to their sustainability rather than merely benefiting from them?
The answer became IRSO (Infrastructures et Réseaux de la Science Ouverte), a library-led institutional programme that combines funding, governance participation and strategic engagement with open science infrastructures. Since 2022, IRSO has become one of the pillars of the university’s open science strategy and a model that can be reproduced by other institutions.
Why support open science infrastructures?
The open science landscape relies heavily on community-owned infrastructures such as HAL, DOAJ, DOAB, OpenCitations, ROR, OPERAS, Peer Community In, Software Heritage and many others. These services enable discovery, dissemination, preservation and reuse of research outputs.
However, while universities invest significant amounts in commercial scholarly communication services, many open infrastructures operate with limited resources and uncertain business models.
For Université Paris Nanterre, supporting these infrastructures became both a strategic and ethical choice.
The institution’s open science policy, adopted in 2021, recognises that knowledge dissemination, bibliodiversity and equitable access to research are core academic values. Supporting open infrastructures therefore became an integral component of its mission to serve research, education and society.
Rather than creating new local solutions, the university chose to strengthen trusted and widely adopted community infrastructures that already serve the global research ecosystem.
From policy to action: creating the IRSO programme
In 2022, Université Paris Nanterre formally mandated its Library to design and coordinate a dedicated programme supporting open science infrastructures and networks.
The result was IRSO, a structured framework that combines:
- Strategic support
- Financial support
- Governance participation
- Institutional advocacy
- Community engagement
The programme operates at three interconnected levels:
- National
- European
- International
Its objective is straightforward: to ensure the long-term sustainability of critical open science infrastructures while aligning institutional investments with the university’s scientific priorities and values.
Why a library-led model?
The decision to position the Library at the centre of the programme was deliberate.
Modern academic libraries are no longer limited to collection management. They increasingly support:
- Open access
- Research data management
- Scholarly communication
- Research assessment
- Persistent identifiers
- Open publishing
At Université Paris Nanterre, the Library already serves more than 35,000 students, around 1,300 doctoral candidates and approximately 1,200 researchers and teaching staff. It possesses the expertise required to understand researchers’ needs while maintaining a global view of the scholarly communication landscape.
This made the Library a natural coordinator for an institutional strategy supporting the scholarly commons.
The IRSO model in practice
IRSO combines recurring funding with active participation in governance structures.
The programme operates with an annual budget ranging from approximately €55,000 to €70,000 and organises support around five priority areas:
-
Open science infrastructures
Support for national, European and international infrastructures committed to open science.
-
Open monographs and SSH publishing
Support for open scholarly communication in the humanities and social sciences, particularly diamond open access publishing models.
-
Open dissemination ecosystems
Support for services enabling the dissemination of research outputs and scholarly publications.
-
Open-source software and code
Recognition that software and code are essential scholarly outputs requiring long-term preservation and support.
-
Outreach and visibility
Organisation of events, webinars, Open Access Week activities and other awareness-raising initiatives.
This structure provides a coherent framework while remaining flexible enough to evolve with the changing needs of research communities.
Beyond funding: participating in governance
One of the most distinctive features of IRSO is that it goes beyond financial contributions.
The university also participates in governance and decision-making bodies associated with major open science initiatives.
This includes engagement with organisations and networks such as:
- EOSC (European Open Science Cloud)
- OPERAS
- Research Data Alliance (RDA)
- National and international open science communities
The rationale is simple: sustainable infrastructures require both funding and stewardship.
By participating in governance, universities help ensure that infrastructures remain community-driven, transparent and aligned with academic values.
Choosing what to support
A key strength of the IRSO model is its transparent selection process.
Each year, the Library prepares a strategic proposal that is discussed with university leadership and validated by the Rector.
Selection criteria include:
- Scientific relevance
- Institutional alignment
- Disciplinary needs
- Governance transparency
- Community ownership
- Economic sustainability
- Openness and interoperability
- Alignment with national and international frameworks
The programme draws inspiration from recognised initiatives such as:
- SCOSS
- IOI (Invest in Open Infrastructure)
- POSI principles
- France’s National Plan for Open Science
This approach allows decisions to be evidence-based rather than reactive or opportunistic.
Supporting bibliodiversity
Bibliodiversity is another cornerstone of the programme.
Université Paris Nanterre recognises that a healthy scholarly communication ecosystem should not be dominated by a small number of commercial actors.
Alongside subscriptions and acquisitions, the university actively promotes:
- Green open access through HAL
- Diamond open access journals
- Open monograph publishing
- OpenEdition platforms
- Community-owned infrastructures
The objective is not to oppose commercial publishing but to maintain balance, diversity and resilience across the scholarly communication landscape.
From institutional initiative to a national model
An important outcome of IRSO has been its influence beyond Université Paris Nanterre. The model contributed to discussions within the French national consortium Couperin.org and helped demonstrate how institutional support mechanisms could be structured and scaled. By aligning local practices with collective funding mechanisms, the programme has shown that institutional action and national coordination can reinforce one another. Several French universities have subsequently developed similar approaches, demonstrating the model’s adaptability and relevance across different research contexts.
Demonstrating impact
The impact of IRSO can be observed at several levels.
For researchers
The programme supports access to critical infrastructures and services that improve:
- Visibility of scholarly outputs
- Research dissemination
- Data reuse
- FAIR implementation
- Open publishing opportunities
- Adoption of international standards
For the university
IRSO strengthens:
- Institutional coherence
- Open science policy implementation
- Strategic visibility
- Research support services
- National and international reputation
The programme has been highlighted in evaluations and has contributed to position Université Paris Nanterre as an active and recognised actor in the open science movement.
For society
The initiative contributes directly to:
- Open access to research
- Knowledge sharing
- Transparency
- Scientific reproducibility
- Preservation of digital commons
These outcomes align closely with the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science and broader efforts to democratise access to knowledge.
For infrastructures
Predictable institutional support and governance participation improve:
- Financial sustainability
- Strategic planning
- Community accountability
- Long-term service continuity
Lessons learned
After several years of operation, a number of lessons have emerged.
First, supporting open infrastructure should not be treated as a temporary project but as a strategic institutional investment.
Second, funding alone is insufficient. Institutions should also participate in governance and collective stewardship.
Third, libraries are uniquely positioned to coordinate these activities because they operate at the intersection of research, policy, scholarly communication and service delivery.
Finally, transparency matters. Public documentation, shared indicators and open reporting strengthen accountability and encourage replication.
Recommendations for academic libraries
For institutions seeking to develop a similar approach, the Université Paris Nanterre IRSO experience suggests several practical recommendations:
- Embed infrastructure support within the institutional open science strategy.
- Secure endorsement from senior university leadership.
- Position the library as a coordinating actor.
- Allocate a dedicated and recurring budget.
- Support community-owned infrastructures alongside commercial services.
- Participate actively in governance structures.
- Use transparent selection criteria.
- Share methodologies and training materials through professional networks.
- Prioritise collaboration over duplication of effort.
- Focus on long-term sustainability rather than short-term visibility.
Looking ahead
The future of open science depends not only on researchers’ willingness to share knowledge but also on the stability of the infrastructures that make sharing possible. The IRSO programme demonstrates that universities and libraries can play a decisive role in safeguarding these infrastructures. Through a combination of funding, governance participation, strategic planning and institutional commitment, Université Paris Nanterre has developed a model that is robust, scalable and reproducible.
At a time when many essential scholarly commons remain underfunded, the message is clear: investing in open infrastructures is not simply a technical or financial decision. It is a strategic commitment to a more sustainable, equitable and resilient research ecosystem. For academic libraries seeking to strengthen open science, the IRSO model offers a practical roadmap for turning that commitment into action.
See the IRSO poster from the University of Paris Nanterre and the page dedicated to Paris Nanterre’s institutional support for networks and infrastructure promoting open science:
- Swiatek Cassafieres, C., & Gadault, C. (2025). Supporting and taking strategic participation in open science infrastructures at the Université Paris Nanterre [Poster]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17345630
- Université Paris Nanterre. (n.d.). Soutien aux infrastructures de la science ouverte à l’Université Paris Nanterre. https://science-ouverte.parisnanterre.fr/strategie-science-ouverte/soutien-aux-infrastructures-de-la-science-ouverte
Related News