LUMEN Voices: University of Coimbra, Delfim Leão

In this series, we share short interviews to introduce you to the diverse partners contributing to our LUMEN vision. Each month, we’ll shine a spotlight on two of our partners—offering a glimpse into who they are, what they do, and what drives their work within LUMEN. In this edition, Delfim Leão answered our questions

Can you briefly introduce your organisation and its role within the LUMEN project?

The University of Coimbra (UC) is a leading research institution in Portugal with a strong commitment to Open Science, interdisciplinary collaboration, and digital innovation. As a partner in LUMEN, UC contributes to advancing discovery processes by supporting the development of interoperable research infrastructures, particularly through its involvement in OPERAS and cross-domain initiatives (such as multilingualism) that enhance knowledge accessibility and collaboration.

What is the most exciting aspect of your contribution to LUMEN, and how does it align with your organisation’s mission or values?

UC is particularly excited about contributing its expertise in metrics, metadata enrichment, and large language models to enhance multilingual interoperability within LUMEN. Building on its experience with the GoTriple platform in the SSH domain, UC will help develop AI-powered solutions that improve cross-lingual discovery and accessibility, besides developing communication and dissemination. This aligns with UC’s broader mission of promoting Open Science and fostering inclusive, barrier-free scholarly communication across disciplines and languages.

LUMEN is all about interdisciplinary collaboration. How do you envision the project transforming the way research is conducted?

LUMEN’s approach to interoperable platforms and AI-powered discovery tools represents a paradigm shift in research. UC envisions the project breaking disciplinary silos by fostering seamless collaboration between SSH, Maths, ES, and MD researchers. Through open-access infrastructures and FAIR data principles, LUMEN will facilitate more efficient data sharing and discovery, allowing researchers to access, integrate, and utilize knowledge from multiple domains more effectively.

Looking ahead to 2027 and beyond, what impact do you hope the LUMEN project will have on the broader research community and beyond?

By 2027, UC hopes LUMEN will have significantly advanced Open Science adoption and cross-domain research by establishing a fully interoperable discovery ecosystem. Strengthening EOSC services through customized discovery platforms will attract new users and improve knowledge accessibility across disciplines. This will not only empower researchers with innovative tools but also foster a more inclusive and transparent research landscape, ultimately benefiting global scientific collaboration and societal progress.