Collecting, conserving and facilitating access to scholarly publications

The recent restructuring of the French Ministry for High Education and Research (MESR) led a number of projects to be transferred to ABES, including the management of PhD theses. The transfer strengthened ABES's national role and expertise in a field it first entered in 1994, allowing it to develop a range of programmes. In 2010, the agency was entrusted with running the database of French PhD theses, which records all PhD projects currently underway in the humanities and social sciences. Plans are afoot to extend the database to include all subject areas and open a portal devoted to PhD theses. The STAR programme, launched in 2006, allows institutions to store electronic versions of all PhD theses and associated doctoral research projects. In 2008, the Mission de l'information scientifique et technique et du réseau documentaire (Project for scientific and technological information and the documentation network) asked ABES to create a portal for PhD theses. The much-anticipated project, scheduled for 2011, will offer a one-stop shop for all French PhD theses, raising the international profile of French doctoral research.
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