Creating a Community of Diamond OA Practitioners: A Case Study from Switzerland

(Watch the RECORDING.) The further development of the Diamond Open Access (DOA) publishing ecosystem as a robust and sustainable open access route relies on the engagement and collective efforts of academic libraries, journal editors, researchers, and research funding organisations. However, each of these actors follows its own (institutional) logic and priorities: libraries focus on supporting their institutional members; journal editors aim to shape their research fields; researchers pursue academic careers; and funding organisations strive to promote research excellence in a competitive environment. Against the backdrop of the Platinum Open Access Funding (PLATO) project – which aimed to engage these communities in building momentum around Diamond OA – this presentation shares insights into how a community of practice is emerging among DOA journal editors in Switzerland. Many of these editors work voluntarily and see their journals as a “service to their research community”. In a scholar-led publishing system such as Diamond OA, journal editors play a key role in maintaining academic standards, overseeing rigorous peer review, upholding ethical publishing practices, and connecting with research communities. At the same time, the international “OA Diamond Journals Study” (Bosman et al., 2021), along with the PLATO landscape study on scholar-led journals in Switzerland, has shown that Diamond OA journals operate within a fragmented, archipelago-like landscape of publishing outlets and (institutional) infrastructures. This presentation will focus on a case study from Switzerland, where the PLATO project sought to amplify the agency of these journals – financially, institutionally, and symbolically – by making them more visible (through the creation of a journal database) and supporting the establishment of an association of Diamond OA journal editors. By centering the voices of editors, this presentation reflects on how bottom-up initiatives can shape the Diamond OA ecosystem and discusses ways to move from fragmented efforts to coordinated, systemic action.