19 March 2026
Tom Shaw, Library Engagement Lead, Open Journals Collective
Welcome to the latest issue of UKSG e-news! We are delighted to be given the opportunity to introduce ourselves in this issue.
We are the Open Journals Collective (OJC), an international collective of libraries, scholarly societies, and small non-profit publishers changing the way that academic research is supported and disseminated. Our publishing partners publish leading academic journals that are openly available – free to read, published with no embargos, and with no author payments. We work closely with libraries and funders to support the transition from a profit-driven commercial publishing model to a community-governed publishing model, with all funds invested in the journals and research communities that make them possible. Our aim? To build a sustainable future for academic journals through providing financial, legal and technological support. Our expertise as mission-driven publishers places us at the heart of the academic community. Ultimately, we believe that high-quality research should be available to all.
“Working together, libraries can build a sustainable, more equitable future for academic journals publishing that transitions away from unaffordable commercial models,” said Professor Caroline Edwards, Co-Director of the OJC. “Our model enables high-quality journals to ‘flip’ away from subscription structures into a fully diamond environment, reducing financial barriers while strengthening long-term resilience”.
To say 2025 was a busy year for the OJC would be an understatement. We onboarded 26 publishing partners and created a Publishers’ Board, established a Library Board consisting of 20 librarians, set up five working groups, soft launched at UKSG in Brighton, reached out to countless libraries, presented at multiple events and launched our website.
Charles Watkinson, Associate University Librarian at the University of Michigan and Chair of the Publishers’ Board said: “The Open Journals Collective is one of the most exciting initiatives in advancing diamond open access that I have seen. Investors have an opportunity to support communities of scholars and publishers who have shown their commitment to expanding access to knowledge over decades of scrimping and saving. With real investment, the sky’s the limit for what the authors and editors of these journals can achieve”.
We launched officially at the end of January and now have 10 libraries worldwide that have signed up to support OJC via our Library Membership programme. As of the time of writing, this has raised £662,740 for our non-profit academic journals, and represents nearly 23% of our Year 1 investment target of £2.85M.
We’re delighted to share that one of our first library members is the University of Cambridge Libraries and Archives. Dr Sacha Jones, Head of Open Research Services at the University of Cambridge said “The Open Journals Collective offers libraries a practical way to support the growing ecosystem of community-led diamond open access journals. We’re delighted to support this initiative and the ethical alternatives it provides for those responsible for producing and sustaining journals, and for those reading and publishing in them. This opens up opportunities for Cambridge’s academic community but it goes far beyond our own institution and we’re particularly excited to see how OJC enables the wider ecosystem to thrive.”
2026 sees the next phase in the development of OJC, with the organisation’s first full-time members of staff starting. We want to extend a huge welcome to Tom Shaw, OJC’s new Library Engagement Lead, who started in February, and Sally Bell, our new Operations Manager, who starts in May.
Tom Shaw said: “I’m delighted to have joined the Open Journals Collective and I’m really looking forward to working with libraries globally to grow our support for diamond open access publishing. As a former librarian with a career encompassing roles in content, collections and open research, I have experienced first-hand the challenges of rising prices, shrinking budgets and publisher business models that don’t work for libraries, institutions or authors. OJC provides a very tangible alternative with the potential to deliver real and positive change in scholarly publishing”.
Our key priorities now are to develop our website to share news, press releases and updates, and to build our impact dashboard to help libraries explore engagement with OJC journals at their institutions. We’ll continue our engagement with libraries and with purchasing consortia globally, and look forward to welcoming many more libraries into our membership community. And on the publishing side, we’re developing criteria for bringing new journals and publishers into OJC, and setting up our Funding Board to lead discussions about funding allocation for journals.
Excitingly, we will also be at UKSG 2026 in Glasgow, with a presence at the OIPA and COPIM stalls and some of our members presenting and networking. If you’d like to arrange a meeting to learn more about OJC or discuss supporting us, please reach out to our Library Engagement Lead, Tom Shaw, at thomas.shaw@openjournalscollective.org and Professor Caroline Edwards, OJC Director, at caroline.edwards@bbk.ac.uk.
As Research Professional News reported, chaos is coming for scholarly publishing. Will you be part of it?
For Librarians
Are you a librarian interested in supporting the OJC? Download our brochure, browse our online catalogue, then fill out our signup form. Or contact us at info@openjournalscollective.org if you have questions or would like to book a call to discuss membership in more detail.
For Publishers
Are you a publisher interested in becoming a publisher member? Keep an eye on our website where we will announce details of the process for new publishers to become part of OJC. We anticipate opening applications for this later in 2026.