The new DORA – join us to celebrate and to learn about new features and developments

Archive, bibliography, Open Access repository – the institutional repository DORA fulfils many different tasks for the four research institutes (4RIs). After years of reliable service, the time had come to give DORA a fresh look. With support from Amazee Labs, we reached a first milestone for a modern and performative DORA: a new frontend that combines enhanced user experience with new functionalities.

Celebrate with us the launch of the new DORA and learn about its features

We invite you to join us for a short presentation about DORA and its features. We have organised in-person events at all three Lib4RI sites:

26.02.2026, WSL, library, General Purpose Building MG, E30, starting at 17:00
02.03.2026, Eawag/Empa campus, library, Forum Chriesbach, B30, starting at 17:00
03.03.2026, PSI, Auditorium, WHGA/001, starting at 17:00

We will give a short presentation about past, present and future of DORA and will be supported by members of the respective directorates. On 02.03. (Eawag/Empa campus) we will be joined by members of the external development team (Amazee Labs). These presentations will be followed by an apero where we are happy to learn about your needs and wishes for DORA. Help us plan by saving and accepting the invite below in your calendar!

Join at WSL Join at Eawag-Empa Join at PSI

The new features in detail

Graphical user interface: The new graphical user interface offers better visual aids to guide users and is optimised for display on different screen sizes, including smartphones.
General Search: DORA now offers a general search that lists search results across all 4RIs. This combined search allows researchers to identify other 4RI groups working on similar topics.
Increased security: The DORA data is now safe behind a firewall, communicating with the new frontend via selected, controlled channels. This setup allows us to block external access to sensitive elements of the DORA database more efficiently.
Linking DORA and institutional webpages: Links to your personal institutional webpage and that of your department will be shown next to your name on publication pages. This will support a better integration of DORA with institutional webpages and increase the visibility of research outputs.

More features for DORA are coming

The launch of the new DORA frontend is just the beginning; several additional features will be added in the coming months.

New backend: We will migrate the DORA data to a new backend system that will offer increased security and performance. This will also make DORA more interoperable with other repositories and databases, making it easy to find connections between publications in DORA and other research outputs (publications, research data, code).
AI-ready metadata: We will implement a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that will make DORA data accessible to different Large Language Models (LLMs) and to inform and support the responses they generate.
Increasing visibility: We plan to use LLMs to create lay summaries of research articles in DORA. See below for more information and for becoming a tester for this project.

Lay summaries by AI large language models (LLMs) – Become a tester!

How can we make research results from 4RI researchers more accessible for a wider audience? Our tests show that LLMs can write comprehensible lay summaries for the wider public. To test this in more detail and to get the feedback and opinions from 4RI researchers we ask you to help us by becoming a tester for this project. If you are interested, please contact us at dora@lib4ri.ch.