Building repositories in the NHS: Practical approaches and best practices
Presentation Type
Lightning Talk
Date
2025-11-20
Description
Within the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), the role of repositories is becoming increasingly important for advancing open science, ensuring compliance with funder mandates, and supporting staff in disseminating their work. Our presentation will highlight practical approaches to setting up and running repositories in NHS trusts, drawing from concrete experiences and best practices within the NHS landscape. We will first explore why a repository is crucial for medical institutions: from improving visibility of staff research and grey literature (such as audits, reports, and policy documents) to enhancing institutional reputation and supporting evidence-based care. Key steps to get started will be outlined, including defining repository goals and aligning with governance and compliance requirements. The session will then discuss recommended approaches for uploading both published articles (PubMed) and internal outputs, with guidance on metadata standards, copyright, and staff engagement. Finally, we will share NHS-specific best practices for sustainable implementation and adoption. Participants will leave with some practical use cases of building repositories from an NHS perspective, which could bring insights to other medical institutions across the globe.
Keywords
MIRL Symposium, 2025 MIRL Symposium, lightning talk
Rights and Permissions
Copyright © 2025 The Author.
Repository Citation
Jong, Kobe and DeRoost, Ignace, "Building repositories in the NHS: Practical approaches and best practices" (2025). Medical Institutional Repositories in Libraries (MIRL) Symposium. 7.
https://scholarlycommons.henryford.com/mirl/2025/program/7
Building repositories in the NHS: Practical approaches and best practices
Within the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), the role of repositories is becoming increasingly important for advancing open science, ensuring compliance with funder mandates, and supporting staff in disseminating their work. Our presentation will highlight practical approaches to setting up and running repositories in NHS trusts, drawing from concrete experiences and best practices within the NHS landscape. We will first explore why a repository is crucial for medical institutions: from improving visibility of staff research and grey literature (such as audits, reports, and policy documents) to enhancing institutional reputation and supporting evidence-based care. Key steps to get started will be outlined, including defining repository goals and aligning with governance and compliance requirements. The session will then discuss recommended approaches for uploading both published articles (PubMed) and internal outputs, with guidance on metadata standards, copyright, and staff engagement. Finally, we will share NHS-specific best practices for sustainable implementation and adoption. Participants will leave with some practical use cases of building repositories from an NHS perspective, which could bring insights to other medical institutions across the globe.