In accordance with the principle of openness of science and knowledge to the public and citizens the obligation was stipulated:

1. 1. for higher education institutions to make available to the public PhD dissertation prior to its defense,
2. 2. for universities to provide an open access digital repository with defended dissertations, with appropriate documentation and to deliver to the Ministry of Education a copy of the content for a central repository.

These obligations are regulated with the Law on Higher Education (Amendments published in the "Official Gazette of RS", no. 99/2014 of 09/11/2014. and entered into force on 19.9.2014). It is stipulated that "The University is obliged to establish a digital repository which permanently stores electronic versions of defended doctoral dissertation, together with the report of the Commission for evaluation of the dissertation, data on mentor and other Commission members, information about copyright protection, and that all the information contained herein make publicly available”. Moreover, University have to submit to the central repository managed by the Ministry of Education a copy of the content that is stored in the university repository within the three months period starting from the date of the thesis defense.

These changes are fully in line with the guidelines of the framework program of the European Union for research and innovation (Horizon 2020) and will encourage the participation of our higher education institutions in the European repository of doctoral dissertations. Within the project RODOS (Restructuring of Doctoral Studies in Serbia) a central portal NaRDuS (National Repository of Dissertation in Serbia) was developed. There are two persons at each University who are authorized for dissertations depositing.

The existence of a university repository does not relieve the University of the obligation of deposition of all university theses (with supporting documents) in a central repository. Information available on NaRDuS portal allows the establishment of links to the specific university repositories.

Instruction video.