[definition needed] SHERPA began as an endeavour to support the establishment of a number of open access institutional repositories based in UK universities.
As well as a staff team based at Jisc[2] (formerly the University of Nottingham[3]), 33 research institutions and organisations comprise the SHERPA Partnership.
[4] The makeup of this partnership includes many, if not all, of the most research active institutions in the UK and provides practitioner-led experience to the project team.
[10] SHERPA/Juliet is an online database of open access mandates adopted by academic funding bodies.
It is part of the SHERPA suite of services around open access and is run by Jisc (formerly the University of Nottingham).