Knowledge Exchange (KE) is the international partnership in which DEFF has been active since 2005. The KE initiative’s partners apart from DEFF are: Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) in Great Britain, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in Germany and the university organisation SURFfoundation in Holland. The four organisations are very different as regards organisational structure, tasks and mission. But common to them all is their role and visions when it comes to the establishment and development of a cohesive information and communication technology (ICT) and information infrastructure for researchers and students. Since the very beginning DEFF has been housing the joint office with the KE secretariat.

DEFF was host at the fourth Strategy Forum, which was held on 29.-30. April in Fredensborg. Participating in the meeting were management representatives from the four partner organisations and external guests from the four countries. The meeting featured presentations on initiatives at EU level, i.a. by Norbert Lossau, Göttingen University Library, who spoke about OpenAIRE and encouraged KE to contribute actively to the project. Work efforts over the past year were discussed, and the strategic outlines were determined for the coming year with focus on the work with Open Access as well as primary research data. There were positive responses from all the partners to past year’s activities and at the same time everybody expressed their expectations about a continuous collaboration beyond the present three-year KE period. Likewise there was general agreement on continuing with the same vision as in the previous period and also to continue to strengthen the dialogue with EU.

Towards the end of 2008 the four partnership countries initiated cost-benefit analyses of alternative publishing models, prepared by John Houghton, Victoria University in Australia. The reports from Great Britain, Holland and Denmark were published during the first half of 2009, while the German report is expected to be ready during the first half of 2010. The three reports all demonstrated that there are considerable advantages in moving to Open Access. In this connection KE arranged a well-attended workshop in Brussels with participants from the EU Commission and other stakeholders, where the results were presented and discussed. As a follow-up on the results in the reports KE organised a workshop at the Berlin7 Conference in Paris on 3. December 2009 with the title Practical challenges in moving to Open Access.

In connection with Open Access Week (week 43) KE published a brochure about the reports which have analysed the economic conditions in connection with alternative publishing models. The brochure includes John Houghton’s cost-benefit analyses in Holland, England and Denmark, the RIN-report in Great Britain and other analyses prepared over the past few years. The brochure was sent to stakeholders in the four partnership countries.

The Open Access Group is working on business models for Open Access, and KE has instituted a consultancy report about the possibilities for application of the so-called ’submission charges’.

The working group held a workshop in Berlin on 23.-24. September 2009 entitled Main drivers on Successful Re-Use of Research Data, attracting more than 70 researchers with specialist knowledge from the four partnership countries. The workshop focused on advantages, disadvantages and problems in relation to re-use of research data as seen from the researcher’s point of view. Papers, dealing with a number of disciplines, were presented by researchers as well as two main discussion papers and selected presentations from institutions engaged in work with infrastructure, publishers and national as well as international research foundations. It was clearly demonstrated at the workshop that certain challenges and problems are comparable across subject areas and organisations, not only in purely technical terms, but also as regards the readiness to share data.

During the second half of 2009 KE instigated three studies, which are to examine whether a urn:nbn-based system will be able to offer a viable architecture for translation of Persistent Identifiers to electronic material. These studies are associated with a broader project with DEFF, SURF, Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS), the national libraries in Germany, Finland and Sweden and CNR and FDR from Italy. The project will analyse the present national urn:nbn initiatives, prepare guidelines for an international harmonized persistent identifier, structure and suggest a roadmap to obtain possible advantages. Studies and projects are expected to be completed in 2010.

The following working groups were established in 2009:

• Open Access
• Primary Research Data
• Interoperability of Digital Repositories
• Virtual Research Environments
• Licensing
• Libraries in the Digital Age

As per 1. February 2009 Knowledge Exchange Office (KEO) was extended with a part-time coordinator. The coordinator is physically placed with the SURFfoundation in Utrecht, Holland.