CCSD

The CCSD is at the service of the scientific and academic communities. Its mission is to facilitate all forms of direct scientific communication, to give greater visibility to French research through the open dissemination of its results, and to ensure its sustainability.

It has created, and develops the HAL+ research infrastructure, included in the national research infrastructure roadmap. HAL+ is based on three service platforms: HAL, Episciences and Sciencesconf.

The CCSD is a support and research unit (UAR3668) under the triple supervision of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Inria and INRAE. It benefits from the support of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, and of more than 130 French universities and research organizations that use HAL.

Missions

  • Developing open archives for all research output and offering free, open access, fostering the visibility and circulation of scientific and technical information
  • Ensuring the longevity of all the data collected by protecting repositories and long-term archiving
  • Connecting the HAL open archive with the main international themed open archives, such as arXiv, PubMedCentral, etc..
  • Developing computerised tools for researchers and scientific communities to facilitate all forms of direct scientific communication
  • Providing national computer services, notably participating in the creation of the listings required to identify French scientific output and the automatic updating of administrative data bases
  • Participating in all French and international initiatives regarding open archives, particularly European ones

An open science player

The CCSD’s missions are fully in line with the drive for Open Science and, since its creation in 2000 by  the  CNRS, the CCSD has been a major player in open access, particularly through HAL.
The National plan for open science (PNSO) announced by Minister Frédérique Vidal on July 4, 2018, makes open access mandatory for publications and data from public-funded research. One of the measures is support for the HAL archive.
The results of this first plan show the numerous actions carried out during the three years. In particular, the rate of French scientific publications in open access has increased from 41% in 2017 to 56% in 2019. The National Barometer for Open Science indicates in particular that HAL is the main open archive for the opening of French scientific publications.
A second National plan for open science (2021-2024), published in July 2021, continues the ambitious trajectory and includes the development of HAL in its measures. It also supports bibliodiversity, and in particular the diamond model for journals in which Episciences is one of the key player.
More and more French institutions, research organizations and universities are publishing their roadmap for Open Science and placing HAL at the heart of their strategy. See for example the CNRS roadmap for open science, November 2019.