Periodic Reporting for period 2 - DIAMAS (Developing Institutional open Access publishing Models to Advance Scholarly communication)
Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2025-08-31
In the transition towards Open Access (OA), institutional publishing was challenged by fragmentation and varying service quality, visibility, and sustainability. To address this issue, DIAMAS gathered 23 organisations from 12 European countries, well-versed in OA academic publishing and scholarly communication. The project objectives were:
- to gain knowledge on the institutional OA publishing landscape
- to standardise and to improve current institutional publishing practices
- to enhance the capacities of Institutional Publishing Service Providers (IPSPs)
- to support policies and strategies
The results of the project will lead to the European institutional publishing community being progressively structured around common standards, best practices, and use of resources. These will generate better alignment, synergies and efficiency in the operations of institutional publishing and increase trust among policymakers and funders to support this model of academic publishing. The overall goal of the project is to create a high quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing alternative to the “Gold APC” commercial model and a landslide shift in the scholarly communication system. This strategy is supported by three concurrent EC-funded projects – Diamas, Craft-OA and Palomera – that work hand in hand to create efficient community-driven pathways to equitable institutional publishing.
More broadly, this effort undergirds the implementation of the “Diamond Action Plan” that was launched in February 2022 by Science Europe, cOAlition S, ANR and OPERAS, and that was endorsed by more than 150 institutions and other types of academic organisations, who now constitute a community that is kept informed of progress in the three projects and is reflecting on ways to support Diamond Open Access institutional publishing in the future.
These activities around the DIAMAS project take place in the context of an even wider effort to build a global federation of diamond OA publishing, a plan that will be presented and discussed during the Global Diamond Conference in Toluca, Mexico on 23-27 October 2023.
- to gain knowledge on the institutional OA publishing landscape
- to standardise and to improve current institutional publishing practices
- to enhance the capacities of Institutional Publishing Service Providers (IPSPs)
- to support policies and strategies
The results of the project will lead to the European institutional publishing community being progressively structured around common standards, best practices, and use of resources. These will generate better alignment, synergies and efficiency in the operations of institutional publishing and increase trust among policymakers and funders to support this model of academic publishing. The overall goal of the project is to create a high quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing alternative to the “Gold APC” commercial model and a landslide shift in the scholarly communication system. This strategy is supported by three concurrent EC-funded projects – Diamas, Craft-OA and Palomera – that work hand in hand to create efficient community-driven pathways to equitable institutional publishing.
More broadly, this effort undergirds the implementation of the “Diamond Action Plan” that was launched in February 2022 by Science Europe, cOAlition S, ANR and OPERAS, and that was endorsed by more than 150 institutions and other types of academic organisations, who now constitute a community that is kept informed of progress in the three projects and is reflecting on ways to support Diamond Open Access institutional publishing in the future.
These activities around the DIAMAS project take place in the context of an even wider effort to build a global federation of diamond OA publishing, a plan that will be presented and discussed during the Global Diamond Conference in Toluca, Mexico on 23-27 October 2023.
The project successfully established the foundation for a collaborative IPSPs community across the European Research Area (ERA). In its first year, an extensive survey mapped the landscape, yielding a robust database of 650 IPSPs based on almost 700 responses from 18 countries. The survey provided an in-depth analysis of IPSP operations, governance, sustainability, challenges, and expectations. This foundational data is key to setting up a future pan-European network of IPSPs for coordinated action and knowledge exchange.
A crucial early achievement was the development of the Extensible Quality Standard for Institutional Publishing" (EQSIP). Starting with an analysis of 74 best practice documents, EQSIP 1.0 was created and then rigorously refined through engagement with various European focus groups across different countries and disciplines, culminating in the subsequent publication of EQSIP 2.0.
The second project period focused on translating EQSIP into tangible support and infrastructure for the community. We delivered a comprehensive suite of tools and services designed to promote alignment with the quality standard and foster collective growth:
- A self-assessment tool enabling IPSPs to benchmark their current practices against the EQSIP standard.
- A rich resources and guidelines website gathering a collection of articles on all aspects of open scholarly communication.
- A training platform to help IPSPs upgrade their skills and competencies.
- A registry and forum to onboard and sustain a collective that facilitates knowledge exchange, coordination, and alignment across the ERA.
Furthermore, the project specifically addressed the critical sustainability issues*of institutional Open Access (OA) publishing, integrating dedicated resources into our core tools (the self-assessment tool and resource website).
To ensure broader systemic support, we concluded by delivering a set of strategic recommendations to institutional leaders, policymakers, sponsors, funders, and donors, empowering them to better support and sustain institutional OA publishing within their respective remits.
A crucial early achievement was the development of the Extensible Quality Standard for Institutional Publishing" (EQSIP). Starting with an analysis of 74 best practice documents, EQSIP 1.0 was created and then rigorously refined through engagement with various European focus groups across different countries and disciplines, culminating in the subsequent publication of EQSIP 2.0.
The second project period focused on translating EQSIP into tangible support and infrastructure for the community. We delivered a comprehensive suite of tools and services designed to promote alignment with the quality standard and foster collective growth:
- A self-assessment tool enabling IPSPs to benchmark their current practices against the EQSIP standard.
- A rich resources and guidelines website gathering a collection of articles on all aspects of open scholarly communication.
- A training platform to help IPSPs upgrade their skills and competencies.
- A registry and forum to onboard and sustain a collective that facilitates knowledge exchange, coordination, and alignment across the ERA.
Furthermore, the project specifically addressed the critical sustainability issues*of institutional Open Access (OA) publishing, integrating dedicated resources into our core tools (the self-assessment tool and resource website).
To ensure broader systemic support, we concluded by delivering a set of strategic recommendations to institutional leaders, policymakers, sponsors, funders, and donors, empowering them to better support and sustain institutional OA publishing within their respective remits.
The project’s enduring legacy is the European Diamond Capacity Hub (EDCH), a robust collective of over 150 European organizations dedicated to guaranteeing the sustainability and continued advancement of the project outputs. Backed by several funders, the EDCH has established itself as the central coordinating body for more than 20 institutional OA publishing capacity centers operating nationally. Crucially, the Hub has assumed a leadership role, positioning itself as the natural European representative in global discussions with partners in Latin America and Africa to foster the development of institutional Open Access publishing, in particular in the context of the Almasi project.