Diamond open access: A better model for scholarly publishing?

Guillaume Pasquier & Catherine Brendow, 2025 This document is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10047908 Diamond Open Access A better model for scholarly publishing? •Free to read (open access) •Free to publish (no charges for authors) •Peer reviewed •Published under an open license What it is •Grants from research funders •Journals hosted by universities •Learned society journals funded by members •Small self-funded scholar-led projects How it is funded •Difficulty finding sustainable funding •Relying on the self-exploitation of editors •Limitation of scope and scale (niche titles) Main issues The OA Diamond Journals Study (2021) showed that Diamond journals generally have a high quality of content and peer review despite their lack of sustainable funding. While Gold OA article processing charges (APC) incentivise publication volume, Diamond OA incentivises a focus on quality since grants and support depend on the journal’s reputation. How good are diamond journals? •DIAMAS: the cOAlition S project in support of Diamond OA: https://diamasproject.eu/ •CODOA-CH: the SwissUniversities project the Library is contributing to: https://codoa.ch/ •The OA diamond journals study (2021) https://zenodo.org/record/4558704 •PLATO study on scholar-led publishing (2023) https://zenodo.org/record/7461728 Diamond Journals in the World Read more Many institutions host diamond journals, including LSE and Swiss universities: •LSE: https://press.lse.ac.uk/journals •UNIBE: https://bop.unibe.ch •UNIGE: https://oap.unige.ch •UNIL/UNIFR: https://www.soap2.ch •UZH: https://www.hope.uzh.ch International Development Policy was the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Diamond OA journal, published on OpenEdition until 2024. Who publishes them? International Swiss Journal Feminist European Labour Review of Economics Africa Journal of and Statistics Legal Studies KATHRYN & SHELBY CULLOM DAVIS LIBRARY [email protected]