Conclusions and further research
Despite various awareness-raising and advocacy efforts, this research suggests that many academics remain unaware of QUEprints, or are aware of its existence but remain detached from it. Throughout the research there were a number of suggestions from authors that would help them interact with the IR. To develop a means of engaging authors more with their institutional repository, in a similar way that they engage with the RAE process, it was concluded that further research was required. The Embed Project seeks to address some of these issues by developing and testing a prototype fully-managed service model where the IR is fully integrated into the research process. Rather than on the repository, the focus is on the researcher and the research process, providing a range of services to support the researcher, from prepublication assistance, for example proofreading, through to regular post-publication usage statistics. It is intended that individual components of the model will be transferable beyond the original test sites, and will help to raise the profile of IRs generally.