OpenDOAR maintains a comprehensive and authoritative list of institutional and subject-based repositories worldwide, including Asia. It also encompasses archives set up by funding agencies like the National Institutes for Health in the USA or the Wellcome Trust in the UK and Europe.

Typically OpenDOAR lists publication repositories, as this is the basis for most repositories. However, OpenDOAR also lists other types, for example repositories of images or data-sets, particularly where these have metadata or documentation sufficient to make the material re-usable.