Looking Back, Stepping Forward: 15 Years of CORE in the Open Access Movement

Fifteen years ago, CORE (COnnecting REpositories) began as a PhD project with a simple but ambitious idea: to make open research more accessible, not just for humans, but for machines too. At a time when few could imagine tools like ChatGPT answering questions based on vast collections of scientific literature, it was already clear that the future of knowledge would depend on infrastructure capable of delivering information in ways both people and machines could understand. What followed was a decade and a half of learning, building, listening and working with the global research community to shape a more open, intelligent, and discoverable world of knowledge. read more...

CORE at 15: Together Building Open Access, Unlocking Global Knowledge

As of July 2025, CORE marks 15 years of supporting the global open access community through indexing and enriching research outputs. What began as a small-scale project has grown into the world’s largest open access indexing platform supporting over 10,000 repositories and journals, and making millions of full-text research outputs accessible to all.

Our anniversary, CORE at 15: Together Building Open Access, Unlocking Global Knowledge, is both a celebration and a recommitment to the mission that drives us: enabling unrestricted, global access to research. read more...

CORE at Open Repositories 2025: Reflections from the Global Stage

Earlier this year, we shared our excitement ahead of the Open Repositories 2025 (OR2025) conference in Chicago. With a packed programme and growing momentum around open science infrastructure, CORE brought a series of contributions focused on the responsible use of AI, metadata innovation, and national-level repository coordination.

Now that the dust has settled and the conference has wrapped up, we’re taking a closer look at the sessions our team presented, the partnerships we strengthened, and the contributions we brought to the open repositories community. From addressing machine access to research content, metadata quality to AI-powered SDG classification and reproducibility, here’s a comprehensive summary of CORE’s significant presence at OR2025. read more...

Reflections from Tokyo: CORE at the COAR 2025 Annual Meeting

The COAR Annual Conference 2025, held in Tokyo from 12–14 May, brought together repository experts, open science advocates, and infrastructure leaders from across the globe. Representing CORE was Professor Petr Knoth, who contributed to three sessions throughout the event, each addressing urgent and emerging questions around artificial intelligence, machine access, and repository infrastructure.

This blog captures the key moments from CORE’s participation at COAR 2025, touching on discussions about responsible machine behaviour, the current state of UK repositories, and the transformative potential of AI in scholarly communication. read more...

CORE at the CHIST-ERA Projects Seminar 2025: Turning Research Software into Reusable Knowledge

Professor Petr Knoth was selected by the CHIST-ERA organisers as one of four Open Science panellists in the first part of the Seminar. The other panelists included David Camacho (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Project MARTINI & Open Science Ambassador), Sabine Kraml (Université Grenoble Alpes, Project OpenMAPP & Open Science Ambassador), and Joanna Watt (EPSRC, UKRI, Research Funding Agency representative). The panel discussed the main challenges and gaps in Open Science. Among these, Professor Knoth particularly highlighted: read more...

CORE at Open Repositories 2025: Unlocking Insights and Empowering Open Access

CORE will be contributing seven accepted submissions to the 20th International Conference on Open Repositories (OR2025), taking place in Chicago, Illinois, USA, from 15–18 June 2025. These presentations highlight ongoing efforts to enhance open access, improve research discoverability, and address key challenges in the open repositories community.

From managing machine access in the era of generative AI to improving research classification and repository interoperability, each submission provides valuable insights for repository managers, academic institutions, and the wider open access ecosystem. read more...

CORE Successfully Completes the USRN Discovery Pilot Project, Enhancing Repository Discoverability in the United States

A significant milestone has been reached: CORE’s pilot project with the USRN has concluded, delivering impressive outcomes, our pilot project with the United States Repository Network (USRN), a collaborative initiative between CORE, SPARC, Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) and AntLeaf. This pilot, which commenced in 2023, focused on assessing and increasing the discoverability and promoting good practices of U.S. repositories, a crucial step towards building a robust and interoperable national research infrastructure. read more...

CORE presents SoFAIR project at UNESCO

Last week saw CORE founder Professor Petr Knoth at UNESCO in Paris for the 2025 Software Heritage Symposium and summit. Professor Knoth was presenting the work undertaken in the first year of the SoFAIR project, a two-year multinational CHIST-ERA project. The Open University is working in conjunction with multiple partners including INRIA, Brno University of Technology, the Polish Academy of Sciences and Europe PMC. SoFAIR will improve and semi-automate the process for identifying, describing, registering and archiving research software, ensuring it has received a Software Heritage persistent identifier.  read more...

CORE receives funding from Microsoft’s Open Data Initiative

We are extremely happy to announce that we have managed to secure a substantial five-year funding commitment from Microsoft’s Open Data Initiative to improve CORE’s services.

Specifically, the funding will support CORE in:

  • Improving processes for indexing and increasing discoverability of Open Access content from repositories, journals and preprint services.
  • Developing technology to improve the quantity and quality of scholarly metadata in CORE, ensuring CORE significantly contributes to the delivery of a global scholarly knowledge graph.
  • Improving CORE services for better machine access to academic content, in line with the requirements of the OSTP memo, and in line with other OA policy requirements.
  • Conducting research on ethical and responsible ways of using academic content in the age of AI.
  • Developing an annual yearly statistical monitoring process for open access content growth.
    • read more...

    Introducing the SDG Classification Module for the CORE Dashboard

    Figure 1: SDG Classification in the CORE Dashboard

    A Novel Tool for SDG Research Classification

    We are pleased to announce the launch of the UN SDG Classification Module for the CORE Dashboard, a purpose-driven tool designed to streamline and automate the process of classifying academic research according to these goals. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are 17 global objectives adopted in 2015 to address key challenges such as poverty, inequality, and environmental sustainability. They aim to promote inclusive development, economic growth, and environmental protection, with the overarching goal of ensuring no one is left behind by 2030. Each goal includes specific targets to guide global action towards a more sustainable and equitable future. read more...