Sustainability in open access does not have to mean author fees. Collective models like the Open Journals Collective show there is another way.

Challenging old assumptions about funding

There is a persistent idea in scholarly publishing that if authors are not paying to publish, then someone, somewhere, must be losing out. That notion is too rooted in transactional thinking and not enough in the reality of how academic work is created, shared and ultimately valued.

Publishing always involves real costs: editorial work, peer review, typesetting, hosting, preservation and discovery. What diamond open access questions is not the existence of these costs but the assumption that they must be recovered at the point of publication from authors or readers.

Rather than seeing costs as a burden on individual transactions, diamond models ask a more collective question: how can the scholarly community support dissemination as a shared scholarly infrastructure?

Looking beyond simplified open access models

Open access conversations often circle around familiar acronyms. Gold OA typically involves article processing charges paid by authors or funders. Green OA relies on repository deposits of accepted manuscripts, sometimes behind embargoes. Diamond OA, as defined in the literature, means publishing with no charges for readers or authors.

But real practice is more varied. In recent years, new models have emerged that sit alongside these:

Read and publish agreements bring subscriptions and open access charges together in a single negotiated deal between institutions and publishers. These can reduce transactional overhead and spread costs across institutions, but they often still privilege well-resourced universities and large publishers, and do not solve inequity for authors outside participating institutions.

Community indexing and infrastructure partnerships such as open source publishing platforms help bring down costs and give publishers more control. Shared systems like Janeway, OJS and others demonstrate how platforms developed by and for the scholarly community can support high-quality publishing without commercial lock-in.

None of these alternatives fully meets the challenges and requirements involved. But together, they illustrate that the economics of open access are not a binary choice between author fees or no fees. They point instead to a spectrum of shared investment, negotiated stewardship and mission-aligned funding.

What diamond open access looks like in practice

Maximising the value and societal contribution of academic research requires its broadest possible dissemination. When scholarship is made openly available to researchers, educators, policymakers, practitioners and the public, its capacity to inform understanding and address global challenges is significantly strengthened. UCL Press’s commitment to diamond open access is grounded in this principle. The model reflects not the pursuit of alternative revenue structures but an alignment of publishing practice with UCL’s wider institutional vision: to advance knowledge through openness, inclusion and engagement with the broadest possible audiences.

UCL Press is underpinned by direct institutional support from UCL (University College London, UK). This support embeds the Press within a university‑wide commitment to open research and ensures that the publishing programme is structured around purpose rather than profit. By operating within this mission‑driven framework, UCL Press can prioritise dissemination, public value and long‑term knowledge stewardship. Strategic investment in shared and open‑source infrastructure further enhances this, reducing operational costs while strengthening the resilience, transparency and longevity of the publishing platforms on which the journals rely. Participation in partnerships, affiliations, community‑based initiatives and consortia services extends these benefits across the scholarly communications landscape and reinforces collective capacity for open dissemination.

The outcomes of this approach are reflected in the global readership and usage of UCL Press journals. Articles have been downloaded millions of times across almost every country and have been cited more than 14,000 times. Such indicators demonstrate the international reach and cross‑disciplinary engagement that the model is designed to support. Within the diamond open access context, sustainability is therefore understood not through revenue generation but through the extent to which research is accessed, utilised and shared by diverse communities. This, in turn, exemplifies our commitment to research and learning that transcends disciplinary boundaries and connects the widest range of voices and perspectives.

The Open Journals Collective: A new approach

A particularly exciting development in this space is the Open Journals Collective (OJC). The OJC is a new community interest company and international initiative bringing together libraries, university presses and small non-profit publishers to support a large cohort of journals that are free to read and free to publish in, rooted in diamond principles.

Rather than relying on article processing fees, the OJC invites libraries to invest in a curated collective of community-led journals that have long operated without paywalls or author charges. This approach directly confronts the dominance of commercial models and creates a more sustainable and supporting mechanism for funding open access in a way that reflects academic values, not market logic.

UCL Press is proud to be a founding publishing member of the Open Journals Collective, joining other mission-led university presses and scholarly publishing organisations in building this alternative path. This collective investment model amplifies the sustainability of no-fee publishing and demonstrates how community governance, shared infrastructure and transparent funding can underpin a durable ecosystem for journals.

Shifting how we think about value

The economics of diamond open access are fundamentally different because they shift how we define value. Traditional publishing often measures success by revenue or cost recovery. Diamond open access looks instead to reach, equity and public benefit as primary metrics.

This is not to say financial discipline is unimportant. On the contrary, diamond models require careful planning, transparent accounting and collaborative investment. What changes is the framing – rather than monetising individual outputs, we build collective support systems that allow research to circulate broadly and equitably.

Shared stewardship rather than transactional costs

As more institutions, libraries and publishers engage with collective initiatives like the Open Journals Collective, we are seeing that sustainability can be achieved without placing the burden on individual authors. The key is shared stewardship and investing in publishing as a common good that amplifies research impact, supports diverse participation and honours the values at the heart of academia.

In our next post we will step beyond economics to consider the cultural dimensions of diamond open access and what it means for community, trust and the future of scholarly communication.

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