Open Access and the Commons: The many faces of scholar-led publishing

Learn about the crises facing open access academic publishing, and how scholar-led models could help.

Open access publishing has hugely expanded the available audiences for research outputs beyond academics to the general public. This has the potential to combat misinformation, promote new ideas and businesses, and produce a better-informed society. The principle that knowledge is for all is a good one. However, the present marketised system of gold open access has come under criticism for the way article processing charges stretch library budgets and exclude researchers in the global south or who are unaffiliated to institutions, as well as how it incentivises the speedy publication of large numbers of poor quality outputs over fewer high quality outputs to inflate large commercial publishers’ profit margins. One proposed solution to this problem is for academic publishing to re-orient toward scholar-led “diamond” open access publishing using the principle of the “commons” to ensure the control of the publishing process is held democratically by the scholarly community, and that both publishing and reading are free for all. 

Date: January 27, 2026

Time: 13:30-14:30 CET

Location: online

Registration: here