The Diamond Open Access Landscape in The Netherlands

Diamond Open Access (OA) refers to an equitable model of scholarly publication that charges no fees to authors or readers. The content-related elements of publication are owned and controlled by scholarly communities. A number of national and international projects have been funded to enable Diamond OA book, open educational resources, and journal publishing. Under the Open Science NL Open Instructure call in 2025, these include, ‘Enabling and Strengthening Institutional Open Publishing’ (https://www.nwo.nl/en/projects/5000902501), ‘Scaling small in NL (https://doi.org/10.61686/WFIGC92093)’, ‘National Open Access Books Platform (https://doi.org/10.61686/RTRKQ02876)’, and ‘Infrastructures for Diamond Open Access in The Netherlands’. Together, these projects are advancing a coordinated transition towards Diamond OA transformation of the Dutch research landscape. In parallel, the Netherlands University Presses (NUPs) (https://nups.nl/), working together in a federative relationship, alongside Openjournals.nl (http://Openjournals.nl) (based at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Humanities Cluster) are focussing on developing a sustainable national Diamond OA publishing infrastructure.The NUPs are strengthening collaboration through the development of a national association, alongside the creation of a shared metadata hub and joint catalogue. On a European level, the AEGIS-OA project (https://edch.eu/aegis-oa), a Horizon Europe funded project, aims to create a high-quality, transparent, and sustainable open access scholarly publishing ecosystem through the European Diamond Capacity Hub. For the first time book publishing will be included in the Diamond Open Access Standard (https://edch.eu/services) (DOAS), this part of the project is being led by the OAPEN Foundation, based in The Hague. Project outputs are being adapted for the Netherlands through the work of Diamond OA Expertise Centre. (https://www.openaccess.nl/en/expertise-centre-diamond-open-access) (the Dutch National Capacity Centre), and OPERAS-NL (https://operas.huc.knaw.nl/) (The National Node for OPERAS Research Infrastructure).