Comparing Institutional Repository and OpenAIRE Research Products : Scuola Normale Superiore Case Study

This paper presents an exploratory study conducted at the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS) to evaluate the potential of OpenAIRE as a source for enriching institutional repository data. SNS uses IRIS as its Institutional Research Information System to collect and manage research outputs. In line with the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information, SNS initiated a collaboration with OpenAIRE to assess whether its Knowledge Graph and APIs can support the population of institutional repositories while reducing reliance on commercial platforms. An open-source Python script was developed to retrieve and compare research products from IRIS and OpenAIRE. Data on the research outputs of SNS-affiliated researchers for the period 2021-2025 were extracted from IRIS. Other datasets from OpenAIRE were defined to collect the scientific outputs of SNS researchers, since OpenAIRE records organizational affiliations for research products but does not record researchers' affiliations. A record-matching model based on exact, sufficient, and weighted criteria was implemented to identify common and unique records across IRIS and OpenAIRE datasets. Results show that OpenAIRE provides substantial coverage of SNS research outputs and could increase the number of records stored in the institutional repository. However, this study revealed some metadata inconsistencies, incomplete author identification, and affiliation ambiguities that currently limit the feasibility of fully automated bulk import. Overall, OpenAIRE demonstrates potential as an open infrastructure for research information, but this study highlights the need for further improvements in metadata completeness, affiliation tracking, and deduplication processes that are necessary to enable reliable large-scale integration with institutional repositories.