The Diamond Action Plan is one of several pieces of the puzzle in the development towards open access for scientific articles, books and journals. It has so far been signed by over two hundred signatories worldwide. Now Forte, as the first Swedish research council, also signs the action plan.

Portrait photo of Andreas Björke, senior research officer
Andreas Björke, Senior Research Officer

The Diamond Action Plan (DAP) has been developed by the organisations Science Europe, cOAlition S, OPERAS and the French research council ANR. So far, 125 organizations and 145 researchers have signed the plan. Now Forte, as the first Swedish research council, also signs and thereby supports the action plan.

– DAP offers a framework to adapt, further develop and expand a sustainable system for so called diamond journals – that is, scientific journals where both publication and reading are free for researchers and for users of research, says Andreas Björke, Senior Research Officer at Forte. The main purpose of the plan is for the diamond journals to get common principles, guidelines and quality standards.

With a special emphasis on academically owned journals, the plan aims to increase confidence in quality and solve challenges in our current publishing system. For example, building common principles for metadata to make research results easier to find and follow.

Principles regarding openly accessible science is something Forte already supports in other contexts. DAP is also in line with the Swedish EU Presidency’s work with open access.

– Since we are a government agency that fund research, we are keen that the results reach users both inside and outside of the academic world. Now we look forward to continuing the work towards greater openness in research together with other actors in Sweden and internationally, concludes Andreas Björke.

Download the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access via scienceeurope.org