DIRNA intends this project to facilitate a practical research through implementation of institutional repository policy and management issues amongst Azerbaijani universities with close partnership of EU higher education Institutions.
Many of the most encouraging developments will come in the selected institutions in Azerbaijan which are pursuing excellence in particular fields and building creative links to local research communities and business around the country.

Azerbaijani partners of the HEIs:

• Khazar University;
• Baku State University, BSU;
• Azerbaijan Technical University;
• Academy of the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan (ASCCA);
• Ganja State University, GSU;
• Nakhchivan State University, NSU;
• Lankaran State University, LSU;
• Mingachavir State University, MSU.

The partnership between Azerbaijani Universities and EU partner countries will support a range of research activities to provide training environment comparable to the EU education system’s standards. Among the many European HEIs were selected three that are most meet the goals and objectives of the project:

• Università degli Studi dell’Aquila, UNIVAQ (Italy);
• University of Jyvaskala, JYU (Finland);
• Izmir Institute of Technology, IIT (Turkey).

The selection partners from EU countries was based on such criteria as experience in the field of Information communication technology usage, particularly in digital repositories, potential for cooperation, previous experience in the region, research activities and methodology.
UNIVAQ is a research – oriented university well known in worldwide. The ranking result is that it is 78th in the global ranking of THE Impact 2019 (3rd in Italy) and 37th in the global ranking 2021 of GREENMETRIC (5th in Italy).
UNIVAQ is a member of Open Access digital repositories created by some of the main universities in Italy and worldwide in order to promote the widespread diffusion of their professors’ and researchers’ scientific production, also providing nearly total access to theses, dissertations and scholarly publications.
JYU focused on the provision of open learning solutions, collaborative learning, personalized learning and the internationalization and localization of learning activities. Based on a strong pedagogical background, JYU and its Innovative Learning Environments research area will contribute to the project through its extensive research track-record regarding with practical impact.
JYU is a digital repository of the University of Jyväskylä serves as a full text repository of all kinds of open materials: self-archived articles, dissertations, posters, presentations, educational resources, reports, conference papers and research data. Basic information of the public content of the repository is available through open interfaces, which are used by national and international open-access publication portals (e.g., Finna, OpenAire, BASE, National Sports Research Database).
IIT currently hosts 444 ongoing research projects funded by various institutions, including the European Union, the Turkish State Planning Organization (DPT), the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), and the Turkish Industry.
IIT is an institutional repository at international standards that brings together and organize all kinds of academic outputs related to research activities and allows sharing with the whole scientific world by providing long-term preservation.