Slovak Open Sciece Forum 2025

The Role of Diamond Open Access in the Future of Scholarly Publishing Iva Melinščak Zlodi University of Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and social Sciences SPARC Europe What is Diamond Open Access and why talk about it? Diamond OA = publishing initiatives that do not charge fees to authors or readers = ‘no fee’ publishing models (basic distinction, but there may be more nuanced criteria applied) Promises for: - More equitable publishing ecosystem - Community governed instead of market driven - Quality instead of quantity and growth in publishing When did Diamond OA emerge? It has been here from the advent of electronic publishing, even before the term existed. It was given more political prominence since 2021. Key documents: ● The OA Diamond Journals Study (2021) - DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4562790 ● Action Plan for Diamond Open Access (2022) - DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6282402 ● UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (2021) - DOI: 10.54677/MNMH8546 ●EU Council Conclusions on high-quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing (2023) Key EU-funded projects for Diamond OA ●DIAMAS - Developing Institutional Open Access Publishing Models to Advance Scholarly Communication (2022-2025) ●CRAFT-OA - Creating a Robust Accessible Federated Technology for Open Access (2023-2025) ●ALMASI - Aligning and Mutualizing Nonprofit Open Access Publishing Services Internationally (2025-2027) How new is it? Where does Diamond OA thrive? “Towards a federated global community of Diamond Open Access” by Pierre Mounier & Johan Rooryck “Notable community examples include the 20 years of Diamond Open Access in Latin America…” …and what about Europe? A step back… overview of different European national publishing landscapes Source: CWTS Leiden Ranking Open Edition OA HybridOA Gold (diamond+paid) OA %UniversityCountry 8.0%53.0%72.2% University of Zagreb Croatia 25.8%32.4%75.4% University College Dublin Ireland 10.6%50.2%71.2% Comenius University in Bratislava Slovakia 33.0%36.5%84.1% University of Helsinki Finland 33.6%35.2%88.0% University of Oslo Norway 21.7%34.9%76.1% University of Copenhagen Denmark 7.8%47.7%67.2% University of Belgrade Serbia 11.6%47.4%73.1% Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski Bulgaria Survey facts - March-May 2023 - 685 respondents across the ERA - >75% institutional publishers, <25% service providers - 90% produce journals - 66% publish 1-5 journals - 33% publish >6 journals - Not representative of all activity in Europe but reflect common challenges and opportunities Figure 6, Survey responses per country, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10022184 Institutional publishers adhere to high standards of editorial management and professionalism Strong open science practices, often with a diamond model. The scale of operations is usually small: output, budgets and staffing = a reliance on voluntary and in-kind contributions = causing significant barriers to publishing activities In short How much of the published content is OA? ●Survey sample: 90% in journal articles, 76% in conference outputs, 58% in academic books OA publishing is influenced by ●Disciplinary publishing cultures ●Regional publishing cultures ●Legal entity of publisher Open science practices: OA publishing Diversity in the OA publishing landscape ● Results from the survey do not show large differences among regions ● The most important differences can be observed between individual countries within regions - countries within the same region can exhibit markedly different practices ● Organisation of scholarly publishing activities on a national scale is affected by ○Funding opportunities ○Platforms and infrastructures ○Networks and organisations ○Policies Funding opportunities ● What forms of funding have they relied on? And how stable these funding sources have been? ○no single funding source that can be recommended as the most appropriate ○different models work in different contexts ● Fixed and permanent subsidies from parent organisations ○reported as being most often relied upon, and the most stable, but not available to all ●Public funding mechanisms ○important for a certain number of organisations ○local, regional or national funders Role of publishing platforms ● Journal policies are infrequently found on the websites of national publishing platforms ○scindeks.ceon.rs, journal.fi, hrcak.srce.hr, revistas.rcaap.pt, journals.openedition.org, ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr, recyt.fecyt.es ● Journal platforms: ○Can play a significant role in showcasing journal policies ○Can offer guidance in developing such policies ○Can serve as community hubs for publishers Why national differences matter? ● importance of tailoring actions to the specific needs and circumstances of each country ● Diamond OA thrives best in countries with national organisations coordinating diamond publishers: ○the national Hrčak portal in Croatia ○the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) ○the national research infrastructure OpenEdition in France ○the national funder FECYT in Spain ○… European Diamond Capacity Hub https://diamas.org/ a collective that provides services for Diamond Open Access Publishers, Service Providers, and Tools & Technology Providers DOI:10.5281/zenodo.15227981 7 core components: 1. Funding 2. Legal ownership, mission and governance 3. Open Science 4. Editorial management, editorial quality and research integrity 5. Technical service efficiency 6. Visibility, communication, marketing, and impact 7. Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB), multilingualism and gender equity Diamond OA resources and support ● Resources & Guidelines - https://toolsuite.diamas.org/ ○Guidelines ○Sustainability Resources ○Self assessment tool ● Diamond Discovery Hub (DDH) - https://ddh.diamas.org/en ● Registry & Forum ○https://registry.diamas.org/ ○https://forum.diamas.org/ ● Training Platform - https://training.diamas.org/