The purpose of the “V2P2 repository” project is to create an open access IT platform to store, preserve and make accessible different types of scientific data produced by the Institute of Plant Virology (IVV) and the Institute of Plant Protection (IPP) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). The third essential partner of this project, the Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth (CERIS) – CNR, is providing the consortium with its technical support and its experience in building up and managing open access repositories. The project has been partially funded by the Italian Government “MIUR Progetti annuali, L.6/2000, D.D. 369/Ric. Del 26/06/2012”.

In more than fifty years of research activity, IVV and IPP have produced a huge quantity of data, but only a small part has been presented at conferences or published in scientific articles, leaving the largest one unknown and stored in the archives. The vast majority of these unused research data is not yet in digital format: e.g. 16,500 high-definition image prints, 14,600 glass plate negatives, 33,000 film negatives and 40,000 b/w and colour slides showing plant viral infections, plant disease symptoms, insect vectors, plant viral particles, soil fungi, mycorrhized roots, ultrastructure of plant cells, etc. The V2P2 Rrepository is designed not only to preserve and share high-resolution images, but also to digitize Grey Literature (books of abstract, posters, logs, notes, laboratory notebooks) and share data about the IVV collection of plant viruses and phytoplasma (WFCC #1057).

The repository architecture is based on open-source software frameworks, such as Fedora Commons, as a storage backend, and Drupal CMS combined with Islandora, as a frontend. Metadata are based on the Dublin Core model and the Darwin Core standards and exposed via OAI-PMH. Relationships are created following the FAO's Agricultural Ontology Service. 

Although the project has been only recently launched, some examples of the objects stored in the repository are already available here.

• A ready-to-use technical support to build up the e-infrastructure from scratch and simple operating models for digitizing research data can be found in the dev zone of the project.

​The implementation of the project will allow to achieve three main goals:

• enhance scientific data sharing and processing: digital preservation, curation and management will, on one hand, recover and value submerged research data that would otherwise remain unused, or worse, lost and, on the other hand, promote the re-use of research data beyond their original analysis;
• secure the scientific heritage: archiving, sharing and long-term storage are meant to preserve the historical memory of the research institutes and also to witness the evolution of science and technology;
• promote dissemination and public awareness of science: open access as the best way for a proper and widespread dissemination of the scientific knowledge and the scientific method.