The Libraries Committee of the Conference of the Rectors of Italian Universities, hence CRUI, has recently approved the Guidelines for archiving doctoral theses in Institutional Repositories. The Guidelines are the first step of an initiative aimed at putting the principles of the Berlin Declaration into effect in Italian Universities. The CRUI Working Group on Open Access has conceived the Guidelines as a toolkit for Italian Universities, i.e. practical and legal advice for managing and disseminating theses via Open Access IRs. This paper will detail the text of the guidelines reporting the main issues addressed by the Working Group. Legal implications have been rated as a top priority Delivery formats and metadata for long term preservation have likewise been judged as a matter of great importance.