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The CentAUR repository enables outputs from the University of Reading’s researchers to be showcased, shared and reused.
Access to CentAUR is free to anyone worldwide. CentAUR can be searched directly, through repository search tools, or via major search engines. It is indexed by Google Scholar, harvested by CORE and EThOS and is part of a worldwide Open Access landscape.
Staff are asked to add their publications to CentAUR as part of the University’s Open Access policy. The repository also includes the PhD theses of our doctoral research students.
CentAUR contains lots of different types of outputs including journal articles, books, book chapters, conference proceedings, performances, exhibitions, reports, videos and audio files.
Sometimes the files associated with research outputs, such as the author’s accepted versions of a manuscript, cannot be made open immediately. The publisher may impose an embargo, or delay, on the release of the deposited version. The embargo times can range from 6 months to several years. This means that some CentAUR records do not have accessible texts that can be downloaded at the point that the item is published.
What was added to CentAUR in 2024?
For 2024, a total of 2495 items were added to CentAUR. This was slightly down over 2023 when 2593 items were deposited (data from CentAUR statistics). Items added to CentAUR are not always the most recently accepted publications; staff who join the University are able to add their back catalogues of outputs to give a comprehensive view of their research activity. This also helps to populate staff profile pages on the University of Reading website. The oldest item added to CentAUR in 2024 was an article that dates back to 1990.
The repository also includes works from our students. In 2024, undergraduate, taught postgraduate and research postgraduates, were authors on 31, 27 and 323 articles, respectively.
Deposits to CentAUR over the last 4 years
In 2024, 65% of new items added were journal articles. Books and book chapters accounted for 11.5% of new additions. PhD theses from our postgraduate research students made up 18% of the new items added to the repository.
A breakdown of the major item types added to CentAUR in 2024.
Looking at the researchers who deposited their outputs in CentAUR in 2024, 911 different researchers uploaded items. The outputs included almost 1200 University of Reading staff authors.
How was CentAUR used by visitors?
The interactions that visitors have with CentAUR content can be tracked using the JISC IRUS-UK service. This tracks the views of records and their associated files and also counts the number of downloads of the files associated with outputs.
As the number of records in CentAUR grows over time, the number of total views also increases as there is more open content to discover. CentAUR records are well indexed by services such as CORE and Google Scholar so visitors are able to find the content easily.
For 2024, the numbers of total unique visits and total unique downloads were both over 1 million. This is the first time that yearly downloads have topped 1 million.
Views and downloads from IRUS data (COUNTER-5 compliant).
Many of the items in CentAUR were downloaded a considerable number of times in 2024. Almost 7500 items were downloaded at least 25 times, over 2000 were downloaded over 100 times, 68 were downloaded 1000 times and 1 item was downloaded over 10,000 times.
Which items were downloaded most?
All time most downloaded
There are several items in CentAUR that are perennial favourites and record consistently high downloads. Some of these are ‘housekeeping’ items with information on how to Cite from CentAUR and the End user agreement. Other titles in the top 5 downloaded items in 2024 include:
- Kambouri-Danos, M.and Evans, A. (2019) Perceptions of gender roles: a case study. Early Years Educator (EYE), 20 (11). pp. 38-44. ISSN 1465-931X doi: https://doi.org/10.12968/eyed.2019.20.11.38 5860 downloads in 2024
- Adeyemo, F.(2022) The Banker-Customer Relationship. In: Austen-Baker, R., Akintola, K., Ahmed, M. and Adeyemo, F. (eds.) Principles of Commercial Law. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISBN 9781800883567 4437 downloads in 2024
- West, E.and Knight, R. J. (2017) Mothers’ milk: slavery, wet-nursing, and black and white women in the Antebellum South. Journal of Southern History, 83 (1). pp. 37-68. ISSN 0022-4642 doi: https://doi.org/10.1353/soh.2017.0001 4193 downloads in 2024
- Panchal, S.and Riddell, P. (2020) The GROWS model: extending the GROW coaching model to support behavioural change. The Coaching Psychologist, 16 (2). pp. 12-25. ISSN 1748-1104 3969 downloads in 2024
- Hughes, W.(2001) What makes a good research paper? ARCOM Newsletter, 16 (3). pp. 1-4. 3964 downloads in 2024


Newcomers in 2024
Looking beyond these well-used items, it is possible to find the highly downloaded outputs that were newcomers to the CentAUR repository in 2024.
- Mercado, K. M. P.and Osbahr, H. (2023) Feeding the future: knowledge and perception of the Filipino youth toward agriculture. Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, 20 (2). pp. 31-50. ISSN 2599-3879 doi: https://doi.org/10.37801/ajad2023.20.2.3 1691 downloads
- Birchall, R.and Phoenix, J., (2024) Don’t get caught out: a summary of gender critical belief discrimination employment tribunal judgements. University of Reading, Reading. doi: https://doi.org/10.48683/1926.00118472 1397 downloads
- Itzchakov, G.,Weinstein, N., Leary, M., Saluk, D. and Amar, M. (2024) Listening to understand: the role of high-quality listening on speakers’ attitude depolarization during disagreements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. ISSN 1939-1315 doi: https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000366 470 downloads
- Eleazar, P. J. M.,Cardey, S. P., Osbahr, H., Tirol, M. S. C. and Quimbo, M. A. T. (2024) Gendering sugarcane farming: understanding the plight of sugarcane block farmers in Batangas, Philippines. Cogent Social Sciences, 10 (1). 2318881. ISSN 2331-1886 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2024.2318881 312 downloads
- Cross, M.(2024) Unlocking imagination through maps: exploring the spatial imaginaries of food system transitions. PhD thesis, University of Reading. doi: https://doi.org/10.48683/1926.00117616 283 downloads
Where do CentAUR visitors come from?
The IRUS data gives an indication of the location of the person downloading content from CentAUR. For 2024, visitors from over 230 different countries and territories downloaded content from the repository. Most of the downloads were from European countries, with the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands accounting for almost 70% of the downloads from this region. In Africa, most downloads were made by visitors from South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. In North America, most downloads were from the USA, but Canada and Mexico also accounted for significant numbers of downloads. Visitors from Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Chile represented almost 80% of the downloads from South America. For Asia, visitors from India and China represented a third of the total downloads. The majority of the downloads from Oceana were from Australia (81%) and New Zealand (17%).
Providing Open Access for those in need of information
One of the key purposes of the CentAUR repository is to provide free access to University of Reading’s research to anyone in the world with an internet connection. This open access is particularly important for researchers working in low income countries where libraries, Universities and research centres may not be able to afford to subscribe to expensive journals. The most valuable content for researchers without journal subscriptions is often the author’s accepted version of a manuscript. This can often be made available to download from CentAUR (sometimes after a publisher’s embargo) and is free to access.
In 2024, there were over 22,000 downloads of content from countries included in the World Bank’s list of low income economies. Visitors from Ethiopia recorded the highest number of downloads from CentAUR in this group of countries. It is interesting to note that one of the most downloaded items from visitors in Ethiopia was a review article published in 2018 on producing climate-resistant coffee in Ethiopia:
Hirons, M., Mehrabi, Z., Gonfa, T. A., Morel, A., Gole, T. W., McDermott, C., Boyd, E., Robinson, E., Sheleme, D., Malhi, Y., Mason, J. and Norris, K. (2018) Pursuing climate resilient coffee in Ethiopia – a critical review. Geoforum, 91. pp. 108-116. ISSN 0016-7185 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.02.032
The published version of this article is still behind a publisher’s paywall if you try to access it via the Geoforum journal website without a journal subscription. However, the accepted version, without the publisher’s formatting, can be downloaded from CentAUR for free.
Similar locally focussed research articles feature in downloads from other low income countries. For example, visitors from Uganda downloaded several PhD theses, reports and journal articles with a Uganda focus:
- Bakashaba, R.(2019) Entrepreneurial income and barriers to firm growth: a study of rural small and medium enterprises in Uganda. PhD thesis, University of Reading. doi: https://doi.org/10.48683/1926.00088810
- Plumpton, H.and Cornforth, R., Furey, S., ed. (2020) Groundwater country profiles for seven UpGro consortium project countries in Africa. UpGro, https://upgro.org/. (UPGro (2020) “African Groundwater 2020: Online Final Report of the Unlocking the Potential of Groundwater for the Poor Programme (2013-2020), http://www.upgro.org)
- Young, H.,Plumpton, H., Miret Barrio, J. A., Cornforth, R. J., Petty, C., Todman, L., O’Sullivan, D. M., Wagstaff, C., Mason, O., Shepherd, T., Saabwe, C. and Talwisa, M., (2020) Sweet potato production in Uganda in a changing climate: what is the role for fertilisers. Working Paper. Walker Institute pp8. doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3955098
- Shibata, R.(2020) Understanding the Dynamics and Diversity of Smallholder Farmers’ Innovation Processes and Agricultural Innovation Systems in Uganda. PhD thesis, University of Reading. doi: https://doi.org/10.48683/1926.00104249
- Mitheu, F. K.(2023) A model for impact-based flood early warning and anticipatory actions in Uganda. PhD thesis, University of Reading. doi: https://doi.org/10.48683/1926.00112918
Adding items to CentAUR is simple
The role of repositories such as CentAUR in democratising access to current research is an important one and is a fundamental aim of the Open Access movement.
University of Reading staff can add their peer-reviewed outputs to CentAUR simply and quickly. Items should be added as soon as they are accepted for publication.
For help in adding content to CentAUR, there are guides and step by step instructions available on the CentAUR website.