DEFF's vision
"It is DEFF's vision that researchers, lecturers and students have access to all relevant information via user-friendly systems and guidance of high quality. All aspects of researchers' and students' work with information resources are thereby supported at the highest international level."

DEFF's mission
"It is DEFF's mission to contribute to an optimal exploitation of research-based information resources. This will happen through co-operation between library partners, joint development projects and the establishment of a technical infrastructure. DEFF's target group is primarily serviced directly through the institutions that participate in DEFF and through common services where this is expedient".

Action plan and strategy
Based on the strategy formulated for DEFF in 2003, the steering committee in 2004 prepared an overall action plan for the period up until 2006 that provided the framework for the action plans for the six programme areas.

In the strategy DEFF is defined as a cooperation organisation for research libraries. This means that the target groups for DEFF and the research libraries are to a great extent identical and that the target groups are serviced primarily through institutions that participate in DEFF.

The activities and objectives of DEF are therefore aimed at supporting the research libraries' performance and their general development. With this in mind, the DEFF steering committee defined three overall objectives:

• The end-users' exploitation of electronic resources has improved and become more extensive
• Cooperation between the research libraries is intensified and includes new partners
• The results are documented, mediated and promoted. Research and research results are known to the public.

Cooperation between the research libraries
It is difficult for an individual research library to develop services to improve and increase the patrons' use of library resources. An important goal for DEFF is therefore to strengthen present collaboration, particularly between the larger research libraries, and to increase collaboration with the smaller ones. Another goal is to involve new partners, such as the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and the Ministry of Education. Yet another goal is to establish close concrete relations to international partners.

Dissemination of results
The most important goal within this area is that "the research libraries are central players in the universities' dissemination of research to the public." DEFF wants to assist the individual research library with this and to establish common activities with a view to improved dissemination of Danish research. In order to do this, the results must be documented. Dissemination in more general terms must be directed at key decision-makers and the public. In certain areas DEFF also wants to mediate actual results and promote the exploitation of these to e.g. public libraries and universities.