Diamond open access – that is, publications with no fees for authors or readers (see the DIAMAS Consortium’s definition) – is crucial for sustainable and fair access to scientific research. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) takes account of this fact with its funding guideline for the promotion of projects to establish a lived culture of open access in German research and scientific practice (Richtlinie zur Förderung von Projekten zur Etablierung einer gelebten Open-Access-Kultur in der deutschen Forschungs- und Wissenschaftspraxis).
On 24 October 2024, six projects funded within the framework of that funding line organised a “Diamond Open Access Flashlight” on the occasion of International Open Access Week 2024 to present their interim results and increase awareness of the important concerns of diamond open access. With their different approaches, the six projects – KOALA-AV, Diamond Thinking, OLEKonsort, edu_consort_oa, DiamOnd@HsH, and ELADOAH – could provide a good insight into the diversity of the diamond open access landscape in Germany.
The event was aimed at everyone who is interested in free access to scientific discourse and in diamond open access – irrespective of their level of knowledge. The projects consciously endorsed the aspiration of International Open Access Week 2024: under the motto “community over commercialization”, the participating institutions signalled their commitment to fair and free open access. The results of the respective projects substantively support this commitment.
KOALA-AV
KOALA-AV, a joint project on the part of the Communication, Information, Media Centre (KIM) at the University of Konstanz and the Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology University Library (TIB), is dedicated to establishing quality-assured, APC-free consortial open access solutions. To date, 13 journals and two book series have been grouped into subject-specific bundles, which are being jointly financed by national and international institutions for three years.
The project is investigating the motivation for and the added value of participating in the KOALA model and the challenges faced by existing consortia and models. A survey of acquisitions librarians found that one relevant motivation for participating in the model is the reallocation of acquisition funds. Respondents considered the strategic motivation in supporting diamond open access to be the most important added value and the lack of publications by researchers from their own institutions to be the greatest obstacle to participation. The project is developing proposals for solutions to that problem and is connecting the community, for example in workshops. The project team is currently optimising the workflows and further expanding the model with national and international partners. For example, since 2024, the KOALA model has been piloted as KOALA-SLUB at the Saxon State and University Library (SLUB) Dresden.
ELADOAH
In the collaborative project ELADOAH (Acquisition Logic as an Obstacle to Diamond Open Access: Solutions, Detours, and Back Roads), information on existing and possible models for financing diamond open access is being collected and discussed. Based on an interview and literature study, the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society has arrived at the preliminary conclusion that scholarly publishing is very much in flux and that in particular collaboration (instead of competition) and orientation towards the common good (instead of profit) are gaining in importance. The interviews show that scholarly publishing is increasingly understood as a holistic model in which publishing risks can be better mitigated through collaborative organisation and financing.
The Verfassungsblog is examining whether and to what extent public budgetary law precludes the financing of diamond open access publications, in particular by universities and their libraries. In this regard, it can already be said that when it comes to acquisition issues, people usually seem to lose sight of the room for manoeuvre that can be created by acting in the context of academic freedom. The fact that the legal status of academic libraries receives hardly any attention from legal scholars likely contributes to a possibly narrow understanding of the role of these institutions.
OLEKonsort
OLEKonsort is building a sustainable financing consortium for diamond open access journals in the economic sciences. The project is part of Open Library Economics (OLEcon), an initiative of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. After a successful first financing phase, the call for contributions to the financing of four diamond open access journals for 2025 is running until mid-December 2024.
Exchanges with other projects in the area of diamond open access and with the community of academic libraries have proved very fruitful in the project. While building a community of co-funders, it has become apparent that, in addition to information on the journals’ publication figures, the co-funders are particularly interested in exchanges on the “how” of financing open access. On the other hand, the committed editors of the scholar-led diamond open access journals need exchanges on practical issues relating to journal publishing. In the further course of the project, the focus will be on expanding the consortium beyond the German-speaking area (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and on the stabilisation of participation in the consortium.
edu_consort_oa
In cooperation with the specialised information service (FID) “Educational Science and Research”, Open Access Consortium Education for E-Books and Journals (edu_consort_oa), a collaborative project on the part of DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), is establishing an open access consortium for the financing of open access publications in educational research, educational science, and subject didactics. The primary objective is to create a sustainable infrastructure for the crowdfunding of packages of diamond open access journals and open access e-books through the participation of university libraries and to establish it within the publishing structure of the discipline in a needs-based way.
Consortial subscription procedures will be developed for these two publication types and, in each case:
1) annual invitations to submit applications for financing will be issued;
2) submissions will be formally checked and evaluated by the project participants and reviewed in terms of content by a specialist selection committee;
3) university libraries will be involved financially via pledges; and finally,
4) the publications and their metadata will be disseminated via the disciplinary repository peDOCS and the German Education Index and preserved for the long term.
With edu_consort_oa and the specialised information service “Educational Science and Research”, three packages comprising a total of 59 open access e-books have been financed to date through the participation of over 50 university libraries. The deadline for the submission of applications for funding for a further round of 20 open access e-books and – for the first time – five diamond open access journals is the end of February.
DiamOnd@HsH
The focus of the project DiamOnd@HsH is on establishing a scholar-led, institutionally anchored diamond open access university press. This professionalised offering will supplement the existing publication infrastructures at Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts. The low-threshold on-site service will motivate researchers and teaching staff to publish with the university press and will support them through quality-assurance measures. Cross-faculty discussions have confirmed that there are not only discipline-specific but also university-of-applied-sciences-specific needs and requirements that must be taken into account when designing the service portfolio. The provision of advice at an early stage in and constant support during the process is essential for the perception of the in-house offering. In the first six months of the project term, the team has been working, for example, on the necessary technical infrastructure and on publicising the university press, HsH Applied Academics, which is all set to publish the first four publications.
Diamond Thinking
Diamond Thinking, a collaborative project on the part of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Stuttgart University Library, is dedicated to establishing and expanding infrastructures for diamond open access publications at the two partner universities: in Karlsruhe in the area of scholarly journals and in Stuttgart in the area of book publications. This will be accompanied by PR measures and user research, as information, communication, and reputation building are crucial for the success of diamond open access structures. Scholar-led publishing can succeed only if researchers are aware of the new offerings and take them seriously. Joint projects on the part of the library and researchers can help to achieve this.
However, the partial focus on scholarly societies, which was envisaged for the project, has proved problematic in some cases because these societies are for the most part supra-regionally and often internationally oriented and thus have insufficient ties with a specific location. That is another reason why supra-regional diamond open access structures, which are also being pursued by the project in the context of the alliance of leading technical universities in Germany, TU9, appear highly desirable.
Conclusion and Outlook
The workshop showed that exchanges between the projects are very helpful for successful project work – despite some differences in focus. The BMBF-funded projects can benefit from the respective findings, and collaboration can create synergies.
The following three aspects in particular have emerged as current focal points in the area of diamond open access:
- consortial solutions
- advisory services
- institutional publication infrastructures
– in other words, contexts that thrive on bringing together different perspectives and priorities and on (interdisciplinary) collaboration. Although collaboration and exchange between community-led initiatives are challenging given the limited capacities of these initiatives, they are at the same time decisive when it comes to sustainably designing diamond open access and addressing pressing issues such as long-term financing. The “Flashlight” event was part of the efforts to strengthen exchange within the community and mutual support.
In addition, it became clear that diamond open access is more than just a “fashionable issue” in science policy: In the project presentations and in the feedback of the participants at the event, a commitment to fair and free open access and a desire for a fundamental transformation of the scholarly publishing system were evident. In terms of funding policy, this can be underscored at the national level with initiatives such as the planned establishment by the DFG of a service point for diamond open access; at the European level with the DIAMAS Consortium’s work to increase the efficiency of diamond open access; and at the global level with discussions within the framework of the Global Summit Diamond Open Access (2023 in Mexico and 2024 in South Africa).
Suggested citation
Dalkilic, E., Dwivedi, M., Finger, J., Henkes, L. M., Noreik, S., Scherr, J., Schindler, C., Stork, K., & Wrzesinski, M. (2025). Diamond OA: BMBF-Projekte bringen faires und freies Open Access auf den Punkt. open-access.network. doi.org/10.64395/5x5k9-f4281.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).
