HRB 2020 Contract for support and maintenance, software development and hosting for the EPrints repository &HRB National Drugs Library website for the period 2021–23

Tender description

The Health Research Board (HRB) is a state agency that supports research and provides evidence to prevent illness, improve health and transform patient care. The HRB has 65 staff. Our annual budget is in excess of €45m and we manage a research investment portfolio of approximately €200m. The agency is funded mainly by the Department of Health, and Board members are appointed by the Minister for Health. Since 2002 the HRB National Drugs Library has contributed to the development of the knowledge base informing practice and policy in the field of substance use in Ireland. In 2009 we launched our new website and research repository, a comprehensive and accessible database of Irish research and policy documents. The repository was built using EPRINTS open source repository software, which is used by several large academic institutions throughout the world to manage their own research repositories. We require a software developer to provide support and maintenance of our EPRINTS system and for the www.drugsandalcohol.ie website, to develop a number of new functions for the system and to manage the hosting of this site. A description of the website and additional functionality that has been developed over the past three to four years is presented below. EPRINTS SYSTEM ON DRUGSANDALCOHOL.IE The library research repository and the www.drugsandalcohol.ie website are built on an EPRINTS core. EPRINTS is a repository application used in research institutions and universities around the world. The website uses a cross authentication module, implemented in PHP, which allows a great deal more flexibility in loading content and modifying web pages than in a normal EPRINTS repository. The library has used this authentication module extensively to provide access to restricted documents and to manage permissions around use of data resources. The library repository and website is built on a system using AJAX-JavaScript Perl / PHP / MySQL.