RCAAP - Portugal's Open Access Scientific Repositories - is reaching this milestone as it celebrates 16 years of existence. Take a look back at the history of this Foundation for Science and Technology service , developed by FCCN in collaboration with the University of Minho.
Since its creation, the RCAAP Portal has become a "single point of search, discovery, location and access to thousands of scientific and academic documents". Examples include scientific journal articles, conference papers, theses and dissertations. These documents are distributed across various Portuguese repositories, with RCAAP currently hosting 385 resources (journals and repositories).
It was in 2008 that this digital service added its first scientific article, reaching 12,470 deposited articles that same year. This was the start of a 16-year journey to make scientific knowledge available to students, teachers and researchers, as well as to all interested citizens.
Right from the start, RCAAP's impact was quickly felt. According to information published by this service, "in less than two years, the RCAAP project has established itself and gained visibility and recognition at national and international level".
100,000 pieces of content in just 5 years
In 2012, the service continued to grow, surpassing 100,000 deposited contents. There were several new developments that year, including the addition of the OASIS.BR Portal, which now allows the RCAAP Portal to aggregate more than 2 million additional documents.
The following year, it became the legal instrument for legally depositing doctoral theses, master's dissertations and other scientific works. Shortly afterwards, on May 5, 2014, RCAAP became an instrument to support FCT's open access policy.
By 2022, more than 25 million downloads
The number of downloads has also evolved favorably and, in 2022, the service recorded more than 25 million downloads of hundreds of thousands of documents from repositories, scientific journals and other communities.
2024 has been a year of achievements, with several historic milestones reached. In June, the Common Repository - one of the services provided by RCAAP, created in 2010 - reached 100 member institutions. The year ends with the target of one million scientific contents reached.
At the forefront of Open Science
"RCAAP increases the visibility, accessibility and dissemination of the results of Portuguese academic and scientific research activity," explains the service's manager, Paulo Lopes. This mission, he adds, means that it plays an important role in achieving the objectives of the Open Science movements.
RCAAP is open to all institutions in the Portuguese scientific and higher education systems. The institutions currently participating in the project, as well as their respective repositories, can be consulted via the Portal's directory.
RCAAP is also part of FCT's portfolio of open science services (PubIn, Pólen, Indexar) and science management services (PTCRIS program).
For more information on RCAAP, you can visit the FCCN page for this service.
