Published on: 20/05/2026
The second Cross-Regional Diamond OA Policy Forum meeting took place on Monday, 30 March 2026, bringing together 83 participants from Africa, Europe, and Latin America. The event gathered representatives from governments, research funding organisations, academic institutions, libraries, and other stakeholders interested in advancing Diamond Open Access (OA) publishing.
This meeting forms part of the ALMASI Project’s ongoing efforts to establish regional policy fora across the three regions, supporting the development of policies and sustainable funding mechanisms for community-led, not-for-profit scholarly publishing.
Following a series of regional meetings held in March 2026 in Africa, Latin America, and Europe, this second cross-regional Diamond OA Policy Forum brought those conversations together. It opened with highlights from each region, sharing key insights and emerging priorities, before participants explored commonalities and policy synergies and examined Diamond OA policy excerpts collaboratively.
The Forum was conducted in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, bringing policymakers together to discuss how Diamond OA publishing can be better supported across the three regions, and to exchange insights on regional, national, and institutional policy. Discussions drew on a range of examples and good practice, with particular emphasis on the policy mechanisms best positioned to advance Diamond OA.
Presentation highlights
Regional updates covered a wide range of national and institutional developments, with a particular focus on evaluation models, public infrastructure, funding sustainability, and the role of regional networks in reducing barriers to Diamond OA publishing.
Discussing not-for-profit scholarly publishing in Africa, Iryna Kuchma spotlighted promising infrastructure-building efforts across Africa, from the Academy of Sciences of South Africa’s rewards system for authors and reviewers to Morocco’s CNRST national portal, which hosts hundreds of Diamond OA journals. At the institutional level, she highlighted the University of Zambia’s dedicated Editorial Support Unit, established as part of its 2023–2027 strategic plan, alongside examples from Angola and Mozambique where universities rely on institutional funds and national policies to sustain their journals.
As Iryna put it: “As part of the University of Zambia’s strategic objective to enhance intellectual wealth, the university set a goal to increase the number of research publications and peer-reviewed journals. This institutional strategy was then used to support their Diamond Open Access journals published by the university.”
Vanessa Proudman presented European policy examples, including Switzerland’s revised Open Access strategy, which includes strengthening Diamond OA as one of its six objectives. This policy is driven by disenchantment with costly read-and-publish agreements and a desire to reduce dependence on commercial services. In France,, the Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University set up a unique Open Science charter as part of an institutional commitment to bibliodiversity, which includes Diamond OA publishing.
“In Switzerland, they really want Diamond OA to be something that comes out of the niche and becomes a real part of scholarly publishing in Europe”, Vanessa stated.
Andrea Mora Campos offered a panoramic view of Latin America, noting that the region’s long tradition of non-commercial open access has largely outpaced formal policy, producing a vast journal ecosystem with limited regulatory backing. She pointed to bright spots, including Costa Rica’s mandatory Diamond OA policy in public universities, Colombia’s national open science policy as the only one in the region explicitly promoting non-commercial OA, and dedicated public funding for Diamond OA journals in both Argentina and Chile.
Andrea also highlighted the Mexican example: “The Mexican state seeks to advance the promotion of knowledge as a public good through a model guided by the principles of open access, integrity, diversity, equity, inclusion, and transversality from a perspective of sovereignty understood as a capacity to build our own mechanisms of assessment independent from commercial logics.”
Closing the plenary, Johan Rooryck emphasised how much the three regions have in common and how much they stand to learn from one another. In his view, the tools and best practices needed to advance Diamond OA already exist – the priority now is wider sharing and policy adoption. He distilled the key lessons succinctly as follows: assessment reform drives legitimacy; public infrastructure creates scale; iterative public policy works best; and collaboration is decisive at every level.
Breakout sessions
After the plenary, participants split into language-based breakout rooms to discuss national and institutional Diamond Open Access policies and the obstacles to implementing them. Key takeaways from the English-language room included appreciation for Slovenia’s implementation-focused policy and Switzerland’s flexibility for authors, alongside noted gaps such as insufficient researcher incentives, the need for broader platform inclusion (e.g. AJOL), and clearer progress indicators.
Participants in the French-language room highlighted the lack of coordination between journals and institutions, the absence of harmonized national platforms (notably in France, Benin, and French-speaking Africa), and the importance of building on existing institutional structures before scaling to the national level. As one participant put it, “Diamond infrastructure cannot work in isolation – it needs to be backed by national and institutional policy, particularly when it comes to visibility.” Stronger collaboration and adaptation of existing tools, such as the EDCH, to different contexts emerged as the key suggested approaches.
Participants in the Spanish-language room emphasised the importance of recognising editorial work as a core academic activity within research evaluation systems, noting that in many contexts it remains undervalued or absent. Discussion also focused on the need for sustainable and flexible funding models that reflect the diverse disciplinary, technical, and human resource needs of Diamond OA journals. Participants highlighted the value of bottom-up policy development that draws on the expertise of editors and journal teams, alongside the establishment of shared minimum standards for journals and support for essential services such as metadata management, indexing, translation, and DOI assignment.
Participants in the Portuguese-language room analyzed Argentina’s Resolution 774/2023 as a reference policy for promoting Diamond Open Access, recognizing its relevance to Latin American and African contexts while noting key gaps, particularly the absence of long-term funding provisions. The discussion highlighted the need for legal incentives, sustainable state funding, national journal evaluation systems, researcher training, and regional collaboration to effectively advance Diamond Open Access at both national and institutional levels, with a notably original proposal to establish a network of Diamond OA journals tasked with raising awareness across higher education institutions.
Future actions
The Cross-Regional Diamond OA Policy and Funder Forum will continue to meet regularly alongside its regional counterparts. In the coming months, regional meetings will focus on funding, with the Africa regional meeting scheduled for the week of 7 September 2026, the Latin America regional meeting for the week of 21 September 2026, and the Europe regional meeting taking place during the week of 5 October 2026. These will culminate in a cross-regional gathering in the first week of November 2026.
Stay up to date with all upcoming events and secure your spot by visiting the Forum website regularly – registration details for future meetings will be posted there as they become available.Slides and recordings from the forum are available on the Forum page: watch the full recording and see the slides.
