This report and the associated inventory represent the output of a study commissioned by the European Research Council Executive Agency (ERCEA) on the request of the European Research Council (ERC) Scientific Council and conducted between September 2023 and September 2024 by an independent expert. The research presented here is meant to update the “Study on the readiness of research data and literature repositories to facilitate compliance with the Open Science Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement (HE MGA) requirements”, published in 2023 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7728015; from now onwards the “2023 Study”). The 2023 Study was intended to: ● create a better general understanding of the availability and nature of repositories in different fields of research, for both literature and research data; ● identify trusted[1] repositories across different fields of research and highlight those that are most widely used by ERC-funded researchers; ● assess to what degree the identified trusted repositories facilitate compliance with the HE MGA [2] requirements related to Open Science, in particular regarding the metadata of deposited research outputs; ● enable the ERC Scientific Council to provide well-founded guidance to ERC Grantees as to which repositories will allow them to fulfil the Open Science related obligations of their grant. Given the rapidly evolving repositories landscape, the current study is meant to provide an update to the previous research, by collecting and presenting recent data, clarifying definitions and accounting for possible previous glitches. In particular, the assessment and classification methodology has been revised. We now explicitly refer to the need for the repositories to have separate metadata fields for the information required and differentiate between requirements for data and literature repositories. Moreover, three new categories were introduced to classify the readiness of repositories to allow HE beneficiaries to comply with their Open Science obligations: Exemplary, Essential, and Close to Essential Readiness Levels. As in the 2023 Study, the candidate repositories for assessment were chosen based on their relevance to ERC domains/panels and historical usage by ERC grantees. We started from the 2023 Study list and included some additional repositories based on feedback received from the community of repositories managers. In this study, 241 repositories were analysed, and 186 repositories were identified as trusted. The repository readiness to facilitate compliance with the HE MGA Open Science requirements for metadata was also further assessed. This study provides evidence of the challenges in performing this assessment, which HE beneficiaries will also necessarily encounter, as some concepts are hard to gauge even for individuals with large experience in this field. Notions such as “community endorsement”, “international recognition” and “certification” need a broader common understanding. Moreover, the study confirms that policy requirements for the preservation, curation, and security of repository contents lack common standards and best practices. The study reveals that current certification standards often do not align with the essential characteristics of trustiness for repositories as stated in the HE Annotated Model Grant Agreement (HE AGA). It also suggests that the list of examples for certifications could be expanded. Concerning how repositories facilitate compliance with the Open Science Horizon Europe MGA requirements, the results of this update largely confirm those obtained in 2023. However, through a revision of the methodology of the 2023 study, this update offers a more in-depth analysis of how the repositories currently meet the HE MGA requirements, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the present landscape. Out of the 241 repositories analysed in this study four repositories, i.e. ²Dok, DANS, HAL, and Zenodo, meet the “Essential” readiness level requirements, allowing compliance with all mandatory metadata requisites for both data and literature. An additional repository, AUSSDA, meets such requirements but only accepts data deposition. Two repositories (HAL and AUSSDA) meet all the mandatory and recommended criteria for metadata mentioned in the MGA for literature repositories (Exemplary readiness level). [1] according to the definition given in the Horizon Europe Annotated Model Grant Agreement 

This study was funded by Horizon Europe under the ERCEA administrative budget (contract number ERCEA/2023/VLVP/0033).