About
In recent years, political support for Diamond Open Access (OA) has significantly grown. The Council of the European Union Conclusions of May 2023 affirmed a collective commitment among EU Member States to move towards ‘high-quality, transparent, open, trustworthy, and equitable scholarly publishing’, while the Council Conclusions of June 2022 connected open science with research assessment reform. At a global level, the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science of November 2021 reflects a similar consensus.
It was in this evolving landscape that the idea of an European Diamond Capacity Hub (EDCH) first emerged. Following the OA Diamond Journals Study, which highlighted the need for structured capacity-building support for Diamond OA in Europe, the DIAMAS and CRAFT-OA projects were launched with the aim of laying the groundwork for a federated Diamond OA infrastructure (see our Related projects webpage). These projects played a pivotal role in mapping the landscape, identifying key challenges, and developing the essential building blocks that would later shape the EDCH.
The EDCH now builds upon this foundation, ensuring that the momentum initiated by DIAMAS and CRAFT-OA is sustained and expanded. It aims to strengthen the Diamond OA community in Europe by supporting European institutional, national and disciplinary capacity centres and Diamond Publishers and Service Providers in their mission of performing Diamond OA scholarly publishing. The EDCH will provide these Diamond stakeholders with coordination, sustainability, training modules, technical tools, and services at scale.
With initial financial support from the French National Research Agency (ANR) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the EDCH is now positioned as a long-term initiative ensuring the sustainability and development of Diamond OA in Europe.