EIFL, AJOL (African Journals Online) and WACREN (the West and Central African Research and Education Network), with funding from Wellcome, have launched a three-year project that will develop and deliver a participatory funding approach to strengthen the quality and sustainability of African diamond open access (OA) publishing while maintaining its diversity. Diamond OA means that authors and readers pay no fees to publish or read articles. 

The project will also strengthen national and regional collaboration on diamond OA and seek to secure funding commitments from African governments and institutions by embedding support for diamond OA in open science policies. 

TIMELINE

November 2023 to October 2026 

ACTIVITIES

• Identify challenges facing diamond OA publishing in Africa through community consultation and a landscape study; 
• Design and issue two open calls for proposals for funding (in 2024 and in 2025) to strengthen the quality of diamond OA publishing across the African continent; 
• Provide services to a growing number of diamond OA journals hosted on AJOL’s platform and enhance their quality standards;
• Through WACREN, provide technical assistance to national OA publishing platforms in selected West African countries;
• Define costs and strategies for flipping APC-based journals (that charge Article Processing Fees - APCs - for authors of journal articles) to diamond OA and discuss sustainability models with journals and the institutions supporting them;
• Launch a policy observatory with funding commitments from institutions and governments provided to diamond OA initiatives. 

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Conducted a landscape study to identify challenges faced by no-fee open access journals and journal platforms in Africa. The results, published in July 2024, are based on survey responses from 199 journals, 21 institutional, national and continental journal platforms and 25 country reports. Browse the main findings and highlights from the report in this online version and download a PDF version of the report; 
• Issued the first of two open calls for proposals for funding to strengthen the quality of no-fee OA publishing across Africa and awarded 17 grants to journals and platforms.

See the project poster presented at the Global Diamond OA Summit, Toluca, Mexico,  23- 27 October  2023.

See the project poster presented at the OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association) 2024 Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, 16-18 September 2024.

Contact: Iryna Kuchma, EIFL Open Access Programme Manager - iryna.kuchma@eifl.net

More about the EIFL Open Access Programme