Repository renewal project: a case study from White Rose Libraries

White Rose Libraries (WRL) is a collaboration between the university libraries of Leeds, Sheffield and York. WRL runs two shared repositories to host research outputs and electronic theses which, between them, represent one of the biggest institutional repository services in the UK. Starting from 2021 WRL undertook the repositories renewal project to look for the next iteration of the repository platforms. In this case study we discuss the motivation for the repositories renewal project and the process that was undertaken. We talk about outcomes of the project – which was a conscious decision to retain and further develop the open source EPrints platform – and highlight some of the lessons learned from the project. We reflect that the open source research repository market has remained largely static for some time and intend this as a provocation for institutions and platform developers to further engage in defining the requirements for future repositories and setting a course to get there.