The outcome of a sectoral higher education project supported by the Irish Government's 'Strategic Innovation Fund'. Project planning was carried out by the seven Irish university libraries, DCU, NUIG, NUIM, TCD, UCC, UCD, UL and was supported by the Irish Universities Association (IUA). The project aim is to harvest to one portal the contents of the Institutional Repositories of the seven university libraries, in order to make Irish research material more freely accessible, and to increase the research profiles of individual researchers and their institutions. It is intended to extend the harvest to other Irish research institutions as RIAN develops.