Diamond Open Access refers to a scholarly publication model in which journals and platforms do not charge fees to either authors or readers.
Diamond Open Access journals are community-driven, academic-led, and academic-owned publishing initiatives. Serving a fine-grained variety of generally small-scale, multilingual, and multicultural scholarly communities, these journals and platforms embody the concept of bibliodiversity.
For all these reasons, Diamond Open Access journals and platforms are equitable by nature and design.
Science Europe is one of the leading organisations working to strengthen Diamond Open Access in scholarly publishing. A collaborative process started in 2020 and continues to engage a growing number of partners.
23–27 October 2023
The Global Summit on Diamond Open Access took place on 23–27 October in Toluca, México. This unique series of hybrid and multilingual events brought together the worldwide community of researchers, editors, universities, research funding and performing organisations, academic libraries, learned societies, publishers, and policy makers who are engaged in strengthening the diamond open access ecosystem. As part of the summit, the 2nd Diamond Open Access Conference was held on 25 and 26 October.
Emphasising global engagement and exchange as the way forward, the closing ceremony of the Global Summit saw the launch of the Global Summit on Diamond Open Access Conclusions and Way Forward.
The Global Summit on Diamond Open Access in Toluca, México brought together the community for Diamond Open Access to discuss the equity, quality, usability, and sustainability of this scholarly publishing model.
2022–2025
Science Europe is a project partner and task leader in the Horizon Europe project ‘Developing Institutional Open Access Publishing Models to Advance Scholarly Communication’ (DIAMAS; 2022–2025).
The objective of DIAMAS is to provide the research community with an aligned, high-quality, and sustainable scholarly communication ecosystem, capable of implementing Open Access as a standard publication practice across the European Research Area. This will substantially increase the capacity of institutions to provide innovative, valid, reliable, and accessible publishing services, taking into account the specific needs of the different scientific communities across the diversity of disciplines, countries, and languages.
19–20 September 2022
This conference was the first hybrid event for the community of organisations and individuals who endorsed the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access. Its goal was to further bring together the community and to provide insights and inspiration to operationalise the Action Plan based on existing good practices, with a vision to develop future common services. It took place in Zadar (Croatia).
Science Europe, OPERAS, cOAlition S, and ANR organised a first conference on Diamond Open Access to discuss operationalisation of the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access and to introduce the DIAMAS project.
2 March 2022
Together with cOAlition S, OPERAS, and the French National Research Agency (ANR), and supported by experts from the Diamond Open Access community, Science Europe developed an ‘Action Plan for Diamond Open Access’. It provides a set of priority actions to further develop and expand a sustainable, community-driven Diamond scholarly communication ecosystem. It aims to bring together Diamond Open Access journals and platforms around shared principles, guidelines, and quality standards respecting the cultural, multilingual and disciplinary diversity that constitute the strength of the sector.
Interested organisations and individuals are welcome to join the community by endorsing the Action Plan via https://scieur.org/diamond-endorsement.
Science Europe, cOAlition S, OPERAS, and the French National Research Agency (ANR) present an Action Plan to further develop and expand a sustainable, community-driven Diamond OA scholarly communication ecosystem.
2 February 2022
In collaboration with cOAlition S, OPERAS, and the French National Research Agency (ANR), Science Europe organised a workshop to gather experts from the Diamond Open Access community and discuss priority actions related to the efficiency, quality standards, capacity building, and sustainability of the ecosystem.
The event took place online on Wednesday 2 February 2022 and was sponsored by the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation in preparation for the Paris Open Science European Conference organised in the context of the French Presidency of the European Union.
Science Europe, cOAlition S, OPERAS, and ANR organised a workshop to discuss best practices, develop the central elements of ‘Diamond’ Open Access, and adopt an Action Plan to be presented at the Open Science European Conference on 4–5 February 2022.
March 2021
Science Europe and cOAlition S published the landmark ‘Open Access Diamond Journals Study’ in March 2021. This in-depth report uncovered for the first time the vast size and scope of the Diamond Open Access publishing ecosystem, while also formulating recommendations for its future development.
The study was commissioned by cOAlition S and funded by Science Europe. It is the culmination of work undertaken from June 2020 to February 2021 by a consortium of organisations: OPERAS, SPARC Europe, Utrecht University, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), European Network for Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (ENRESSH), Redalyc-AmeliCA, and Center for the Sociology of Innovation (CSI).
Science Europe and cOAlition S publish an in-depth report and recommendations arising from a study of community-driven Open Access journals across the world that are free for readers and authors, usually referred to as 'OA diamond journals'.