ABSTRACT
Based on the response rate of the survey, the number of OAI-PMH compliant institutional research repositories in the European Union including Norway, Switzerland and Croatia is estimated at 280 to 290. It appears to have increased with 25 to 30 repositories per year in the last 3 years. This figure is lower than generally assumed, as based on OPEN DOAR and similar registries, probably because we used a restrained definition, ‘containing research output from contemporary researchers’. ‘Repository’ is now used in a much broader sense than a few years ago, especially for datasets in the area of archives and heritage collections.
The annual growth rate of the institutional repositories in Europe is 25-35 newly started research repositories per year. In addition, 15 thematic research repositories were identified in the survey. So the total number of research repositories is estimated around 300.
The estimate of 280 to 290 institutional research repositories in Europe means that nearly half of the universities have now an institutional research repository implemented. This is based on the number of universities in Europe of 593 according to the European University Association. If compared with the number of universities according to Braintrack, about one third of the universities in Europe have implemented a repository.
The situation in the European Union countries with regard to institutional repositories is as follows: from six EU countries there are no data available, indicating that there may be no repositories. In two EU countries repositories appear to be in a starting phase, and in six EU countries in an early stage, i.e. 10-50% of the relevant universities have research repositories. In 13 EU countries, an estimated 50% or more of the relevant universities have implemented a research repository that is categorised as a more advanced stage. The situation in the EU has considerably progressed since the 2006 survey, when only seven countries could be categorised in the more advanced stage.
