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The purpose of this paper is to present the current situation regarding open access and institutional repositories (IRs) in Greece.

This paper reports on the development of IRs in Greece and discusses their content and the various access restrictions that apply to content. A questionnaire survey was used to identify current and future steps regarding open access from the IR managers' and library directors' perspective.

The paper finds that Greek IRs using DSpace and CDS Invenio software have been developed by libraries of academic institutions. The Berlin Declaration on open access has been signed by two academic institutions and one research institution, while another university will bring the matter to the Senate. Metadata harvesting is one point that all respondents agreed on, although it seems that a national harvesting service will not be established in the near future. Furthermore, content availability at the moment seems to be hindered by fear of copyright infringement rather than financial charges, at least for ETDs.

Further research should be conducted in order to identify the rate of deposited published peer‐reviewed research in IRs. Furthermore, a broader survey could show the thoughts and future plans of the total of Greek IRs, not just those using OAI‐PMH or those with mixed content (gray literature and published research). Possible research topics could be the interoperability of IRs in order to build a national harvesting service and the access restrictions that are available for authors in each IR.

This paper is addressed to those wishing to be informed of the latest developments regarding IRs and open access in Greece. It also provides a brief insight into the views of leading IR managers and library directors.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the relationship between open access and academic institutions, as well as the initiatives that spring from this relationship with a mainly European geographical focus.

The paper describes the main European initiatives and collaborations in the area of open access that have been university‐driven so far.

The strength of many universities is in leading many national European initiatives, and collaborations by universities that aim to provide open access to research output, scientific publications and student theses and dissertations. Individual university efforts are the ones that pioneer in software and application development. International agreements and declarations are also signed by university representatives in order to promote open access and the close bond between higher education and open access.

The paper describes the latest developments regarding the promotion of open access in European universities and the collaborations that they form. Smaller countries can benefit from these examples. E‐theses projects are estimated to lead the next pan‐European projects related to open access.