Southampton ECS EPrints is ranked number 10 in the world, just behind MIT and the combined campuses of the University of California.

The University of Southampton’s university-wide EPrints repository (excluding ECS) is ranked number 27 and University College London’s repository is ranked number 79 – the only three repositories in the UK to rank in the top 100. There are 80 UK institutions in the top 800 institutional repositories.

The rankings are based principally on the number of links into the repository from external websites, demonstrating the impact of an institution’s research on the rest of the Web.

Dr Les Carr, (right) EPrints Technical Director, comments: “This is excellent news for Southampton, since it clearly demonstrates the value of being able to archive all our research publications on the Web and provide open access to them.

“It also underlines the success of the Open Access Initiative which, together with developments in semantic technologies in which Southampton is also in the forefront, will help ensure in the future that the world can have access to all its scientific research and that the results can be analysed and linked through the World Wide Web.”

The aim of the global ranking is to support Open Access initiatives which provide free access to scientific publications in an electronic form. The School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton is a world-leader in the technology and design of open access repositories as well as in the design of institutional open access policy.

The University of Southampton institution-wide mandate was introduced in 2008. Wendy White, (left) is Repository Manager of University of Southampton EPrints.

She comments that: “Providing global open access to our research ensures that a range of sectors including governments, charities and businesses can make full use of this work.”