Repository open access offers a pathway to making research open without open access publishing fees.
This page introduces our institutional repositories, Minerva Access and Melbourne Figshare. It also provides guidance on how University of Melbourne researchers can deposit their work.
You can find out more about open access in external repositories on our What Is Open Access? page.
Our repositories
Researchers can usually share peer-reviewed Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) of their journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters in Minerva Access. The Minerva Access team ensures files are only shared in line with publisher policies, managing any required embargoes.
Melbourne Figshare can be used to openly share research data, reports, and non-traditional research outputs of various kinds.
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Minerva Access
Minerva Access is the University of Melbourne's institutional repository for traditional research outputs. This includes journal articles, book chapters, and theses.
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Melbourne Figshare
Melbourne Figshare is the University's data and digital asset repository. It is a safe, secure, and easy-to-use cloud-based repository that you can use to share your research.
These repository open access pathways are supported by our Principles for Open Access to Research Outputs at Melbourne. They are also compliant with most funder open access policies, including NHMRC and ARC policies.
Although publishers often require embargoes by default, using rights retention can allow authors to share their AAMs immediately upon publication. Rights retention is encouraged by our Principles for Open Access and required by some funder policies, including the 2022 NHMRC Open Access Policy.
Deposit your research
University of Melbourne staff and students can deposit traditional research outputs in Minerva Access, and most other outputs in Melbourne Figshare. These pathways offer quick and easy ways to make your research open access.
Minerva Access and Melbourne Figshare integrate with Elements, the University's internal research outputs management system. Elements feeds into researchers' public Find an Expert profiles.
Select the relevant output type below for further guidance.
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Research Outputs
University staff can deposit Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) of journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters in Minerva Access.
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Data, supplementary materials, and NTROs
Research data, reports, supplementary materials, and other non-traditional research outputs (NTROs) can be published and shared using Melbourne Figshare.
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Graduate Research Theses
PhD, Doctorate, and Masters Research candidates must submit a copy of their thesis to Minerva Access via the Thesis Examination System (TES). Guidance is available on the "My thesis in the Library" webpage.
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Honours and Masters Coursework Theses
Honours and Masters Coursework students are welcome to submit their final theses to Minerva Access. This may be required by some schools or departments.
Further support
If you require help using Minerva Access, or have queries relating to existing Minerva Access records, please contact minerva-access@unimelb.edu.au.
For assistance depositing research to Minerva Access, please email research-outputs@unimelb.edu.au.
For enquiries regarding Melbourne Figshare, please contact the Digital Stewardship Team via their ServiceNow form.
For other enquiries relating to open access, please contact your discipline's Liaison Librarians.
Page last updated 15 April 2025.
Unless otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.
Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) / Accepted version
The version of an article, paper, book, or book chapter that has been accepted for publication. It is the author’s final manuscript version after peer review and revisions. It is a version before the publisher’s copyediting, typesetting, and formatting results in a proof.
Find out more about article versions on the Minerva Access website.
Institutional repository
Repositories hosted by institutions, such as universities, to collect their research outputs. They often collect a broad range of output types, including articles, papers, books, reports, data, and creative outputs.
The University of Melbourne has two institutional repositories:
- Minerva Access for research publications including journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters
- Melbourne Figshare for research data, reports, and other non-traditional research outputs (NTROs)
You can find out more about Minerva Access and Melbourne Figshare on our Repository Open Access page.
Embargo
In the context of scholarly publishing, embargoes are access restrictions placed on research outputs. While embargoed, research outputs are not available to the public. Embargoes can be temporary or permanent.
Most publishers of subscription (paywalled) journal articles, for example, place embargo requirements on peer-reviewed manuscripts. They often require that Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) are embargoed at publication, typically for 12 or 24 months. Once the embargo has expired, the AAM can be made open access in a repository. Staff at our institutional repository, Minerva Access, check publisher policies and manage embargo periods before making any manuscripts publicly available.
Researchers may also choose to embargo their own outputs. This may be required for privacy, sensitivity, or to adhere to agreements with third parties. Datasets deposited to Melbourne Figshare, for example, can be embargoed when necessary. This results in a dataset record in Figshare with no publicly downloadable files. Graduate researchers may request to embargo their theses under some circumstances.
Elements
The University of Melbourne’s internal research outputs management system.
The Elements platform is used for the collection and reporting of metadata on the University’s research outputs. Publications details in researchers’ Find an Expert profiles are drawn from their Elements profile.
Depositing Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) in Elements is one pathway to making research outputs open access in Minerva Access, our institutional repository.
The Elements platform is developed by Symplectic, part of Digital Science.
Rights retention
When authors pre-emptively assert sharing rights over peer-reviewed manuscripts at the time of initial submission to a publisher. A rights retention statement usually declares the application of a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM). Upon article publication, the AAM can be deposited in a repository for immediate repository open access.
In alignment with the Plan S Rights Retention Strategy, the 2022 NHMRC Open Access Policy includes a rights retention requirement. The NHMRC policy requires authors submitting to subscription journals to include a rights retention statement in their submitted manuscript. Upon article publication, authors are expected to make their AAM open access under a CC BY licence in a repository. This strategy is also strongly encouraged by the University's Principles for Open Access to Research Outputs at Melbourne.
For more information on author rights retention, see our What is rights retention? page. Further guidance on the NHMRC's requirements can be found on our Funder open access policies page and in the NHMRC’s Open access and retention of ownership rights document.