Webinar Announcement: Supporting Learned Societies in Diamond Open Access Publishing

• September 4, 2024

On Tuesday, September 10, 2024, the DIAMAS and PALOMERA projects will jointly host a webinar from 14:00 to 15:30 CEST, designed to engage learned societies and provide insights into how best to support their publishing operations. This online event, held on Zoom, aims to explore the challenges and opportunities facing learned society publishers in the realm of Diamond Open Access (OA) publishing. Interested participants can register through the provided link, with Zoom access details to be sent via email prior to the event.

Diamond Open Access and the Role of Learned Societies

Learned society journals are the embodiment of community-led scholarly publishing, serving diverse academic communities, cultures, and languages. As such, they occupy a central role in Diamond Open Access, a publishing model that is free for both readers and authors. Through journals, books, and book series, learned societies have long been at the heart of the academic publishing ecosystem, and their experiences with Open Access (OA) publishing come with both significant challenges and notable benefits.

The European DIAMAS project, with its mission to foster Diamond OA publishing across Europe, has been at the forefront of addressing the challenges that learned society publishers face in scholarly communication. DIAMAS is a collaboration of over 20 partners from across Europe, representing a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including universities, learned societies, publishers, and funders. The project seeks to understand and mitigate the difficulties these publishers encounter as they navigate the OA landscape.

The DIAMAS and PALOMERA Projects: Insights and Support

DIAMAS has been actively gathering evidence across Europe to identify pain points in OA publishing. A recent report sheds light on how Diamond publishers fund their operations and what they need to ensure sustainability moving forward. Another report outlines the key characteristics of institutional publishing across the European Research Area. These findings will be shared during the webinar.

The financial sustainability of Diamond OA publishing is a critical focus for DIAMAS, which has developed tools and knowledge to support publishers. The PALOMERA project, which concentrates on policy alignment for OA books, has similarly investigated the funding aspect of policies for OA book publishing. PALOMERA, with over 15 partners from across Europe, represents a wide range of stakeholders involved in OA book publishing, including learned societies.

During the webinar, participants will gain insights into revenue streams for Diamond OA publishing, explore cost-saving opportunities in OA journal and book publishing, and consider the complex relationships between learned society publishers, their host organizations, and their members or subscribers. DIAMAS and PALOMERA are eager to learn how they can better support learned societies, particularly in light of their financial constraints.

Webinar Objectives and Participation

Key questions to be addressed in the webinar include:

• How can learned societies share resources or services to reduce costs?
• Which funding models are proving successful, and which are becoming outdated?

This session offers a valuable opportunity for learned society publishers to engage with DIAMAS, PALOMERA, and their peers, exchanging ideas on how to resource Diamond OA publishing and explore potential collaborations to pool resources.

Event Details:

• Date: Tuesday, September 10, 2024
• Time: 14:00 – 15:30 CEST
• Platform: Zoom (Registration required)

The event recording and presentations will be made available on the DIAMAS and PALOMERA websites following the webinar. Personal data for this event is processed in accordance with the privacy statement for TSV Publication Forum’s events.

For further information, please contact:

• Mikael Laakso: mikael.laakso[at]tsv.fi
• Janne Pölönen: janne.polonen[at]tsv.fi

For more information and registration, visit Publication Forum.