Brage (Norway): What It Was and Where It Went

Brage was the Norwegian platform that hosted many institutions’ open research archives. It no longer operates as a separate service: Sikt’s Nasjonalt vitenarkiv (NVA, the Norwegian Research Information Repository) replaced it, and Cristin with it. Researchers who search for “Brage” today are usually looking for an older record, a thesis, or the place where they should now register their publications. The answer to all three is NVA.

What Brage is

Sikt describes Brage as “en plattform for institusjonelle vitenarkiv”, a platform for institutional research archives (Sikt, NVA service page). In practice, each participating Norwegian institution ran its own archive on the shared platform, which is why you will still see page titles such as “NHH Brage” for individual records. Sikt’s help pages also link to automatic transfer of master’s and bachelor’s theses to Brage.

Operator: Sikt, which owns and manages NVA.
Native name: Brage (a platform for institutional repositories, “institusjonelle vitenarkiv”).
Country: Norway.
Successor: NVA, in English the Norwegian Research Information Repository.

Is Brage still active?

No. Sikt’s NVA page states that NVA replaced both Brage and Cristin and that both were discontinued at the end of 2025. Sikt’s transition notes say that after a long transition period, in which all user institutions in Cristin and Brage were moved over together with their registered data, NVA was ready for full use from 1 October 2025. Sikt’s help page on the transition adds that the old Cristin site (wo.cristin.no) and the Cristin web service (API) closed on 19 August 2025, and that the Brage migration ran in batches after the Cristin migration was complete.

The library of NHH (the Norwegian School of Economics) summarises it this way: NVA “combines the functionality of Cristin and institutional research repositories (Brage) into a single shared platform.”

Brage, Cristin and NVA compared

System	What Sikt says it was or is	Status
Brage	A platform for institutional research archives	Discontinued at the end of 2025; replaced by NVA
Cristin	An information system for research (a current research information system)	Old site and web service closed 19 August 2025; replaced by NVA
NVA	A national service for registering, sharing and reusing research results, delivered through a web interface and an API	Main launch 1 October 2025

NVA is a national service from Sikt for registering, sharing and reusing research results. It makes publications and other outputs openly available in one shared solution and also supports national reporting such as NVI (Norsk vitenskapsindeks). The Ministry of Education and Research commissioned it in 2019, and it was first available in 2022 for institutions that did not use Cristin.

Who registers in NVA now

Each researcher is responsible for registering their own scholarly publications and other research results, according to the Norwegian university library guidance that Sikt’s material points to. Sikt’s own Q&A explains the mechanics:

“Registrator” is a role that gives a person the right to register records.
Anyone who can log in with ID-porten can create a user, but registering requires a link to a customer institution, which an administrator sets up.
Users log in with Feide (search for or choose your affiliation in the list) or with ID-porten (click the ID-porten button without choosing an affiliation).
Each user must accept Sikt’s terms of use for NVA.

The step-by-step registration screens are documented in Sikt’s user guides and in your own library’s pages; check the official site for the current labels, because the service is still being stabilised after launch. Sikt planned a consolidation and stabilisation phase for spring 2026.

How to search NVA

NVA offers two search pages: a filter search at nva.sikt.no/filter and an advanced search at nva.sikt.no/search. Adding ?lng=eng to an NVA address switches the interface to English. Older Brage records are searchable here because the records were migrated with the institutions’ data.

What the records contain and how they are used

NVA records combine research output with the research information that used to sit in Cristin. Customers must keep the metadata correct and complete, and files must carry the correct licence. The Norwegian government’s stated goal, quoted by Sikt, is that all Norwegian scholarly articles funded by public money should be openly available. Because NVA also supports NVI reporting, the same registration serves both open access and national publication indicators. For how Norway funds research, see our guide to the Research Council of Norway (Forskningsrådet) funding programs.

Handles and DOIs

For background on why a handle differs from a DOI, see persistent identifier (PID). Sikt’s Q&A says that a handle carries no metadata whereas a DOI has a metadata schema, and that institutions that choose to assign a DOI give the record both a DOI and a handle.

Linking ORCID and other identifiers

An ORCID iD is not mandatory in NVA, but Sikt recommends it. NVA uses ORCID for persons, ROR for organisations, and DOIs from Crossref and DataCite for content. To connect your ORCID:

Log in to NVA with Feide or ID-porten.
Open “My page” in the top-right corner of the header.
On your public researcher profile, select the “Connect/Get ORCID” button (it also appears on the “Personal details” page).
Log in to your ORCID account, or register for an ORCID iD.
When Sikt requests access to your ORCID, select “Accept connection.”

Sikt says the connection lets NVA import your articles faster and with better data quality. See our entry on the ORCID service and the guide on how to add publications to ORCID for the ORCID side of the process. Sikt’s Q&A does not describe linking a Scopus author ID.

Common problems

A link to brage.* no longer works. Search NVA for the title or the author instead of relying on the old address.
You can log in but cannot register. Registering needs a link to a customer institution set up by your administrator and the registrator role.
Software still calls the Cristin API. Sikt’s Q&A says the Cristin REST API would work during a transition period and that users must eventually switch to the NVA REST API; the Cristin web service is closed.
Several full-text versions exist. Sikt’s Q&A says the published version is preferred where a choice is made.

FAQ

Is Brage the same as Cristin?

No. Brage was a platform for institutional archives; Cristin was an information system for research. NVA replaced both.

Where did my thesis go?

Brage data was migrated to NVA in batches, and Sikt says theses can be transferred to NVA through APIs. Search the title in NVA.

Do I need an ORCID iD for NVA?

No, but it is recommended.

Where do I find fees and current dates?

Sikt charges a start-up fee and an annual service fee for institutions; check the official Sikt pages for current figures.

Sources

Sikt, Nasjonalt vitenarkiv (NVA), read 29 October 2026.
Sikt, The Norwegian Research Information Repository, read 29 October 2026.
Sikt, Overgang til Nasjonalt vitenarkiv (NVA), read 29 October 2026.
Sikt, Sporsmal og svar om NVA, read 29 October 2026.
Sikt, Connect ORCID to your NVA profile, read 29 October 2026.
NHH library, NVA, read 29 October 2026.

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