Direct comparison
Institutional Vs Subject Repository: Key Differences & Comparison | CASRAI
Institutional and subject repositories are both places to deposit and share research outputs openly, but they are organised differently. An institutional repository collects the outputs of one institution across all disciplines; a subject (or disciplinary) repository — such as arXiv, PubMed Central, or Europe PMC — collects outputs in a particular field from authors everywhere.
Side-by-side comparison
| Dimension | Institutional repository | Subject repository |
|---|---|---|
| Organised by | A single institution | A research field or discipline |
| Who can deposit | Members of that institution | Authors anywhere working in the field |
| Scope of content | All disciplines within the institution | One subject area, across all institutions |
| Examples | A university’s own open-access repository | arXiv, PubMed Central, Europe PMC |
| Primary audience | The institution and its reporting needs | A global disciplinary community |
| Also supports | Compliance, REF returns, institutional CRIS links | Field-specific discovery and norms (e.g. preprints) |
| Discovery | Harvested into aggregators (e.g. CORE, OpenAIRE) | Strong within-field visibility plus aggregation |
| Preservation | Long-term stewardship of the institution’s record | Stewardship of the disciplinary literature |
| Identifiers | Handles/DOIs; links to ORCID and the version of record | DOIs/IDs; e.g. arXiv IDs, PMC IDs |
Common questions
FAQ
Should I deposit in both?+
Often yes. Depositing in your institutional repository supports your institution’s open-access record, reporting, and compliance, while a subject repository maximises visibility within your field. Many researchers do both, and repositories increasingly interoperate so the work is discoverable through multiple routes.
What is the difference in one line?+
An institutional repository holds the outputs of one institution across all subjects; a subject repository holds the outputs of one subject across all institutions.
Are arXiv and PubMed Central subject repositories?+
Yes — both are disciplinary repositories. arXiv serves physics, mathematics, computer science, and related fields and is widely used for preprints; PubMed Central (and Europe PMC) is a repository for the biomedical and life-sciences literature. They accept relevant outputs from authors at any institution.
Going deeper
