Enact: Building an Open-Source Repository for Practice Research
Date: September 9, 2026
Time: 11:00 AM America/New_York
Session Description
Practice research produces outputs that rarely fit the mold of the article or the dataset: performances, exhibitions, compositions, installations, and the processes and narratives that give them meaning. Conventional institutional repositories were designed around text, so much of this work stays invisible. Enact is a specialist practice research repository funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). A cross-institutional team, led from the University of Westminster and including Queen Mary University of London and the University of Leeds, is building it in the open for the international practice research community.
This session introduces the project and the thinking behind it, including the PR Voices metadata schema, a project-centred data model that captures process and context alongside outputs, and the Pathfinders programme that puts practice researchers and repository experts at the center of co-design. We'll show how the team is building Enact on the open-source Samvera Hyku platform, share what we've learned working across three organizations and an international user community, and talk about where other institutions can plug in.
Outcomes and Objectives
Attendees will leave with:
- An understanding of what practice research is and why its outputs challenge conventional repository infrastructure
- A look at how the PR Voices metadata schema captures process, context, and the full range of contributors beyond a single author
- A view into how the Pathfinder co-design programme, now including five Early Adopter institutions, shapes development priorities
- Concrete ways to follow the project and get involved ahead of its Year 2 launch
Presenters
- Nick Steinwachs, President, Notch8. Nick leads Notch8, a Samvera Community partner that builds and hosts open-source repository infrastructure for universities, libraries, and cultural heritage organizations. Notch8 is the development partner on the Enact repository build.
- Rory McNicholl, Digital Research Team Lead, CoSector, University of London. Rory has spent two decades building services for research data and scholarly communication, and leads the CoSector team serving as Enact's technology partner.
- Jenny Evans, Enact Project Lead, University of Westminster. Jenny leads Enact: PR Voices and SPARKLE Phase 2, building on Westminster's pioneering work in practice research repositories and open research infrastructure.
Links for Attendees
- Enact project site: https://blog.westminster.ac.uk/enact/
- What is practice research? (PRAG-UK report): https://doi.org/10.23636/1347
- PR Voices metadata schema: https://github.com/research-technologies/prvoices_schema
- PR Voices report: https://doi.org/10.34737/w3803 and SPARKLE report: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/203045/
- Samvera Hyku: https://hyku.samvera.org/
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