The agreement was signed at Tomsk State University.
The initiative to create the database was put forth by NEICON, Russian nonprofit specializing in distribution of electronic information. TSU, KFU, and Siberian Federal University were the first three institutions to upload their publications to the base. Kazan University was represented by Director of Lobachevsky Library Yevgeny Strukov. 12 more universities are expected to join the project, now officially titled National Aggregator of Open Repositories of Russian Universities (NORA), by the end of 2018.
NEICON Executive Director Alexander Kuznetsov commented, “We are creating an infrastructure that, firstly, will facilitate the gathering of documents in one place, secondly, present Russian universities nationally and internationally, and thirdly, ease the use of such systems as Anti-Plagiarism, widening its access to publications. The project is aimed at comprehensive development of Russian repositories.”
NORA is funded by Russian Presidential Grant for civil society initiatives. The other partners who have joined are the Association of Internet Publishers and Vashe Tsifrovoe Izdatelstvo LLC.