Considered the largest initiative of its kind in helping to enhance repository development worldwide, DRIVER is a multi-phase effort whose vision and primary objective is to create a cohesive, robust and flexible, pan-European infrastructure for digital repositories, offering sophisticated services and functionalities for researchers, administrators and the general public.

DRIVER has established a network of relevant experts and Open Access repositories. DRIVER-II will consolidate these efforts and transform the initial testbed into a fully functional, state-of-the art service, extending the network to a larger confederation of repositories. DRIVER is integral to the suite of electronic infrastructures that have emerged in the worldwide GÉANT network and is hence funded under the e-Infrastructures call of the European Commission's 7th framework programme. It aims to “… optimise the way the e-Infrastructure is used to store knowledge, add value to primary research data and information making secondary research more effective, provide a valuable asset for industry, and help bridging research and education.”