Repositories

What are repositories?

Many academic institutions that support open access archive their researchers’ publications in online repositories that are freely accessible worldwide and easy to find online. The publication of academic information in these online databases is called the ‘green road’ to open access; another term is self-archiving. All Dutch universities, most of the Universities of Applied Sciences, and other research institutes have their own repository.

HBO Knowledge Base

The publications of 26 universities of applied sciences are accessible via the HBO Knowledge Base. This concerns more than 66,000 (december 2021) research publications and graduation products.

Netherlands Research Portal, the national portal for scholarly information

In the Netherlands Research Portal on OpenAIRE CONNECT, the national scholarly portal, you can consult all the Dutch repositories in one go. The research publications of HBO Knowledge Bank can also be found via this portal. As of July 2023 the portal gives access to over 3.5 million research publications, in addition to datasets and software.

Submitting your publication to the repository

If you wish to have your publication included in your institutional repository, get in touch with the contact person at your university or research institute. For HBO Knowledge Base there is more information on the website.

Publishers and self-archiving

Many publishers allow self-archiving. Authors are permitted to make their publications available in their institutional repository. Sometimes a publication is made available immediately in the repository, while for some pubilcations an embargo period has to be met. Some publishers do not allow you to make your publication available through a repository. However it may be possible for you to negotiate with your publisher and come to an individual agreement. The policy of your university or department also plays an important role here. The general recommendation is that you proceed carefully with regard to copyright and to inform yourself about these issues in advance. This website will tell you what the publishers' policies for self-srchiving are.

Dutch Copyright Act

As of 1 July 2015 the Dutch Copyright Act sets out the legal parameters of academic authors making their research results available worldwide in open access. Academic articles resulting from research that is wholly or partly publicly funded may be placed in open access by the author after a reasonable period of time. The author may not surrender this right if the agreement with the publisher is subject to Dutch law. The acts of exploitation must take place mainly or entirely in the Netherlands.                                                                                                               

Practical copyright tools and resources

SURF has developed a range of practical tools (in Dutch) that authors can use to decide which copyrights they will transfer to the publisher and how they will make agreements about the re-use of material. All universities have developed copyright information platforms for their researchers.