News

2026/08/18

Nearly 4 Million Japanese Research Outputs Integrated into OpenAlex: Collaboration with NII's IRDB Dramatically Improves the Global Discoverability of Research from Japanese Institutional Repositories.

　The National Institute of Informatics (NII), part of the Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS) and led by Director-General Sadao Kurohashi, has integrated metadata from its Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB)^［*1］ into OpenAlex ^［*2］, one of the world's largest open scholarly information databases.
　As of August 18, 2026, metadata for nearly 4 million research outputs collected through IRDB is freely available to researchers and the public worldwide via OpenAlex.

Background

IRDB is NII's core scholarly information infrastructure, aggregating metadata from institutional repositories developed and operated by universities and research institutions throughout Japan. It plays a central role in supporting the dissemination and visibility of Japanese research outputs. With the integration of metadata stored in IRDB into OpenAlex, one of the world's largest open scholarly information databases, Japanese research outputs have become widely available through OpenAlex, significantly enhancing their discoverability and reuse.
This collaboration is driven by the strategic goal of promoting open access to diverse research outputs, including scholarly publications and research data, through Japan's institutional repositories, while maximizing the discoverability of Japanese research outputs within the global scholarly information infrastructure. This initiative is based on the Basic Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data ^［*3］, adopted by the Cabinet Office's Integrated Innovation Strategy Promotion Council in February 2024. It will help transform Japanese research outputs into "machine-actionable knowledge assets" for the AI era.
This collaboration is an initiative to integrate Japanese research outputs into the global scholarly information infrastructure, significantly enhancing their international discoverability.

Overview of the Initiative

Approximately 5.45 million records held in IRDB underwent data-quality improvement processes, including the consolidation of duplicate records and the exclusion of records for deleted content. As a result, metadata records for nearly 4 million Japanese research outputs are now freely available through OpenAlex, a global scholarly information infrastructure.
This initiative has enabled research outputs held in Japanese institutional repositories to be disseminated internationally through the use of metadata compliant with JPCOAR^［*4］ Schema Version 2.0 ^［*5］, developed by the Japan Consortium for Open Access Repository (JPCOAR). This integration with OpenAlex is supported by the high-quality, standardized metadata accumulated in IRDB, including research titles, authors, DOIs, full-text URLs, and institutional affiliations.
OpenAlex is designed not only for human search, but also for automated machine-to-machine use by AI systems and software applications. Its API and dedicated libraries provide an "AI-ready" ^［*6］ environment, making IRDB metadata available for AI-driven use and reuse.

Future Outlook

NII will continue to enhance the functionality of IRDB and improve the quality of its metadata, further promoting the dissemination of research outputs while developing IRDB into a scholarly information infrastructure that makes an even greater contribution to the advancement of research.

Link

• Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB), National Institute of Informatics (NII)
• iJapan. Co., Ltd. (OpenAlex Official Japanese Agency) Press Release

News Release: PDF

Nearly 4 Million Japanese Research Outputs Integrated into OpenAlex: Collaboration with NII's IRDB Dramatically Improves the Global Discoverability of Research from Japanese Institutional Repositories.