The HardiBlog

The Research Data Steward role was introduced to the University of Galway Library in May of last year. The role's primary purpose is to provide essential support and advice for research data management (RDM) and data governance across the research lifecycle. RDM consists of data tasks of planning and design, sourcing and collection, processing and analysis, and publishing and preservation, all through the lens of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) principles.  As the University of Galway Library's first Research Data Steward, I have been developing resources to support researchers, addressing gaps in RDM support and building a roadmap for its future. With progress being made in these areas, it was time to get the word out to University of Galway researchers by embarking on an RDM Roadshow to each school to introduce myself and speak on key updates. The goal of these Roadshows was two-fold: first, to provide an overview of RDM services and resources offer...

We are delighted to introduce Arushi Sharma from Project SCOIR (Trinity College Dublin), who will be the keynote speaker at our next Open Research Forum: “ University of Galway's Research Publishing Policy: Empowering our Research Community ” on 20 May 2026. Please join us to hear Arushi, along with Claire O’Connor and Martin Leahy, followed by a light lunch. Arushi Sharma is an Associate Researcher with Project SCOIR (Secondary rights, Copyright, Open access, Institutional policies, and Rights retention), where she has contributed to the development of the draft Research Outputs and Open Access Bill 2025.  Arushi has also engaged in discussions with policymakers and presented on rights retention and open research policy in academic settings. She also served as Communications Officer for Project SCOIR, supporting national-level engagement on open research and rights retention. She is also a PhD researcher in Law at Trinity College Dublin, where her research focuses on data protect...

Save the date  for our next Open Research Forum on  2 0   May  2026 ,   “ University of Galway's Research Publishing Policy: Empowering our Research Community ” . This event is hosted by  University  of Galway  Library  Research Services .      Agenda :  Wednesday, 20 May   12.00: Opening: Cillian Joy, Head of Library Research Services 12.05: Keynote: Arushi Sharma, Project SCOIR, Trinity College Dublin    12.25: Claire O'Connor,  Director of Planning and Institutional Research   12:35: Martin Leahy, Research Integrity Officer   12:45: Panel questions and responses, moderated by Jen Smith, Open Research Librarian   13:00: Light lunch     Venue:  Hardiman Building Seminar Room, THB-G010, University of Galway     Please register here for catering purposes:  registration link .   Topic   Research  publishing  attains  its highest st...

Traditionally, academic publishing has been closed, which means that readers can only access research outputs if you or the institution you are affiliated with pay for them through subscriptions. However, research metrics – approximate measures of how many papers have been published and how often they have been cited – are created by the same companies that publish and index the research.  These commercial interests mean that research metrics such as Clarivate’s “Journal Impact Factor” and the Scopus “CiteScore” are biased in such a way that they reward publishing and citing sources within these same companies. This means that university ranking systems based on these metrics are also biased; therefore, proprietary research metrics and commercial university rankings are all part of the same closed research infrastructure. Recently, many institutions have started to withdraw from this closed, commercially-driven research infrastructure, as detailed in part 1 of this post , which als...