Purpose-This paper presents a technical perspective when implementing the Slovenian open access infrastructure that consists of four institutional repositories and a national portal that aggregates content from the repositories in order to provide a common search engine, recommendations of similar documents, and similar text detection. Design/methodology/approach-During the project, the necessary legal background and processes for mandatory submissions of final study works, research publications and research data were established, as well as processes for data exchange between the institutional repositories and the national portal, and processes for similar text detection. Findings-The consortium consisted of four Slovenian universities that significantly differ in size, organisation, and workflows. It was anticipated that exactly the same legal background and software would be used for the four repositories. It turned out that complete unification was impossible due to the differences. Practical implication-The national open access infrastructure will improve the visibility of Slovenian research organisations. It supports the compliance with the funders' open access mandates. The established infrastructure enables the depositing and archiving of approximately eighty percent of the peer-reviewed scientific publications that are annually published by Slovenian researchers. At the same time, the majority of final study works from Slovenian higher education institutions are available in full-text format. Originality/value-This paper describes a technical perspective for setting up a national open access infrastructure, which has not been described in the literature previously.

Universities are challenged with creating an enabling environment for Open Science, including policies, technical infrastructure, services, training and support and cross-cutting issues such as FAIR research data management and Open Access. In many universities, staff and skills to supply are in high demand and the level of implementation is often lower than the strategic importance given to Open Science (EUA, 2021). Collaboration is crucial to address these challenges, be efficient and avoid duplication of efforts across higher education institutions and other stakeholders. European university alliances are one mechanism that supports such collaborations (Council of the EU, 2021). In the EUTOPIA European University, an alliance consisting of 10 member universities from across Europe, an ambitious work programme has been developed and is implemented through several projects funded by Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020. EUTOPIA understands Open Science as a core pillar, recognizing that knowledge needs to be accessible for everyone. Therefore, our alliance aims to mainstream Open Science across the network and create closer policy alignment between individual alliance members. We do so by addressing different dimensions relevant for Open Science, from policies over to joint training and support, as well as coordinating these activities across the alliance and policy alignment (implemented in a subsidiary way). Overall, our activities cover: Building technical infrastructure, although challenging across institutional and national boundaries, through a collaboration with OpenAIRE. This will facilitate FAIRness of our research results and FAIR-compliance of institutional repositories. Training and guidance on crucial issues such as research data management, Open Access, Citizen Science, and reproducible research for different target audiences. A framework policy for research assessment & metrics considering Open Science as a cross-cutting issue. Citizen science receives special attention through the establishment of a community of practice and regular citizen science clinics, informal meet-ups to share experience, approaches and challenges in Citizen Science. A template Open Science policy to be implemented in modular fashion by partner universities and the creation of an alliance-wide Open Science office. In short, European Universities are an important vehicle for connecting Open Science expertise and capacity across higher education institutions. They allow for the integration and efficient use of local expertise and networks for the benefit of the academic community of all members. Moreover, they are platforms for experimentation and sharing experience among partners with a focus on producing tangible results and improvements. We believe that alliances such as EUTOPIA are important tools to advance Open Science in Europe.

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