Statement on Diamond Open Access
By gathering community support for non-commercial, scholar-led journals, Diamond Open Access is best placed to achieve the objectives of the Open Access movement and to reclaim research as a public good.
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For many years now, Coalition Publica, and its constituent partners Érudit and PKP, have been involved in various national and international initiatives regarding Open Access (OA). These discussions have confirmed our position that Diamond OA is the most promising approach to achieve the aims that the OA movement articulated over twenty years ago. By affirming our support for Diamond OA, we reinforce our commitment to the collective transformation of scholarly publishing in Canada and around the world.
Diamond OA is a model for publishing scholarly research that is free for both readers and authors, with the costs of publishing covered by the academic community and governments through institutional contributions, public grants, and cooperative funding models. Diamond OA journals are non-commercial and scholar-led.
In Canada, where most journals are in the humanities and social sciences, Diamond OA is already the dominant publishing model. Canadian Diamond OA journals play an important role in sustaining a high level of bibliodiversity in research outputs because they:
support the publication of work in Canada’s both official languages, English and French, as well as many others;
reflect a diversity of disciplines and research topics, maintaining venues for the publication of studies about Canada; and
provide an opportunity for researchers from diverse backgrounds to publish their work at all stages of their careers.
Unlike journals that rely on Article Processing Charges (APCs), Canadian Diamond OA journals do not require researchers to pay to publish their ideas. Unlike subscription journals, articles published by Canadian Diamond OA journals are freely available to read for research, higher education, and an informed citizenry. In short, the Canadian experience shows that Diamond OA is, without a doubt, the most equitable OA model for both readers and authors.
Commercial models of OA based on costly APCs have been shown to reduce equity and diversity within scholarly communications, on top of opening doors to practices that threaten research integrity. APCs are also an ongoing drain on university and library budgets everywhere. This is equally true of research grants, whenever public funds are allocated to publishing fees imposed by for-profit publishers. The domination of scholarly publishing by commercial actors is a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of research communication and those of us who support Diamond OA see an urgent need to recommit to research as a public good.
Coalition Publica’s Actions for Diamond OA
The Partnership for Open Access (POA) is a pillar of Coalition Publica’s services to support Canadian scholarly journals. The POA enables Diamond OA publishing in Canada by providing financial support to non-commercial scholarly journals from library partners. Over 160 Diamond OA journals are currently supported by the POA.
Coalition Publica shared its key takeaways from the inaugural Global Summit on Diamond Open Access in Toluca, Mexico, which gathered international players in Diamond OA publishing.
Coalition Publica signed the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access, developed by ANR, cOAlition S, OPERAS, and Science Europe.
In Canada, we are fortunate to have many partners willing to engage in supporting Diamond OA publishing, including the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, and the numerous libraries offering publishing and hosting services to journals across the country. We are also pleased that the benefits of Diamond OA are being recognized by Canada’s research funding agencies. The Fonds de recherche du Québec has announced that its journal funding program will support only Diamond OA journals in the future, while also investing in the creation of a collaborative research and services network for scholarly journal publishing. Our federal research funding agencies recently released a report from the consultation process for a revised OA policy that indicated high levels of interest in Diamond OA.
This outward support in Canada reflects the momentum that Diamond OA is gaining internationally. The landmark OA Diamond Journals Study (2021) revealed the huge number of active Diamond OA journals and their high impact. The subsequent Action Plan for Diamond Open Access (2022) paved the way for the first Global Summit on Diamond Open Access (2023), hosted by Diamond OA pioneer Redalyc, in partnership with UNESCO, cOAlition S, and Science Europe, among others. Coalition Publica partners Érudit and PKP are proud to be engaged in the global effort to promote and sustain Diamond OA publishing, alongside other non-APC OA models such as Subscribe to Open (S2O), to reclaim research as a public good.
We envision a future where OA journals that operate without APCs are adequately supported by the research community, via institutional contributions, public funds, and sound policy. Diamond OA maximizes the value that all stakeholders invest in the research ecosystem and we at Coalition Publica call on all parties to unite around this truly transformational OA paradigm.
