University of Minho (UM) is a public higher education institution, founded in 1973 and is one of the so-called "New Universities" that, at that time, deeply changed the higher education landscape in Portugal. Located in the region of Minho, known for its significant economic activity and by the youth of its population, University of Minho has played the role of development agent in the region. Whilst UM is a young university, it enjoys a very high reputation for its research and educational performance.

The university administration is situated in Braga and most of the teaching and scientific activities are carried out in two sites: the campus of Gualtar, in Braga, and the campus of Azurém, in Guimarães. Science, economics, education, management, arts and medical sciences courses are predominantly taught in Braga, while architecture and most of the technological courses are offered in Guimarães. A student population of over 15000 together with more than 1100 teaching staff and almost 645 technical and administration staff make the University of Minho one of the biggest Portuguese universities.

University of Minho has been developing its institutional repository – RepositóriUM − since 2003, and is internationally known as one of the “success stories” on the development of institutional repositories and the promotion of Open Access to scientific literature. In the end of 2004 University of Minho has established a self-archiving policy of its intellectual output, requiring that all publications from university members be deposited in RepositóriUM. Since then the University institutional repository has been growing significantly, storing almost 8,000 documents in March 2009.

Contact persons

• Eloy Rodrigues
• Pedro Príncipe