Existing studies have provided estimates of the prevalence of OA publications ranging from 27.9% to 53.7%, depending on the data source and period of investigation. This paper aims at providing a comparison of the proportion of OA publishing as represented in two major bibliometric databases, Web of Science (WoS) and Dimensions, and assesses how the choice of database affects the measurement of OA across different countries. The paper concludes with a discussion of the cause and consequences of these differences, motivating the use of more inclusive databases when examining OA.

The Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) and DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) released a new Open Access Journals Toolkit. The launch of the Toolkit marks a significant milestone in the efforts of OASPA and DOAJ to promote transparency, accessibility, and inclusivity in scholarly publishing. Intended for anyone involved in journal publishing and with a strong focus on helping under-resourced journals globally, the Toolkit enables empowered and informed decision-making. It will contribute to the advancement of scholarly publishing standards and best practices.

Two new agreements between DOAJ, the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) and the Council of Atlantic Academic Libraries – Conseil des bibliothèques postsecondaires de l’Atlantique  (CAAL-CBPA), have been announced in April 2023. These agreements will provide a vital boost to the sustainability of key open access infrastructure, essential to the future of science and research in Canada and around the world.

In the lead-up to the October 2023 Global Summit on Diamond Open Access, Science Europe, cOAlition S, OPERAS, and the French National Research Agency (ANR) have organised two webinars for the community to prepare discussions for the global summit and to take decisive steps towards a stronger Diamond Open Access ecosystem for scholarly communication.

The ‘Action Plan for Diamond Open Access’ was launched in March 2022. It has since been endorsed by 146 organisations and 138 individuals. It is now available in Dutch, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, with more translations on the way.

According to the ESAC initiative at Max Planck Digital Library, there is significant market concentration in academic publishing, with just a handful of publishers accounting for the majority of the scholarly articles published globally. ESAC supplies current data on market shares, transformative agreements and a comparison between countries regarding the openness of scholarly articles.

This article aims at providing a comparison of the proportion of OA publishing as represented in two major bibliometric databases, Web of Science (WoS) and Dimensions, and assesses how the choice of database affects the measurement of OA across different countries. They take into account the various categories of OA publishing, i.e. gold, green, bronze, as well as hybrid. They conclude that Dimensions indexes journals published by platforms developed in the South—AJOL (Africa), AmeliCA (Latin America), and SciELO (Brazil)— and thus has the potential to be a more suitable platform for an inclusive measurement of OA uptake, especially of publications by authors from outside North America, Europe, and Central Asia.

Latin America and the Caribbean is a strategic region for the EU and a natural partner for collaboration in the development of research and innovation policy priorities such as open science. This report focuses on open access policies for scientific production in Latin America and the Caribbean and in the European Union. Its general objective is to increase knowledge in order to achieve greater alignment between the policies of open access to scientific results between both regions.

JISC, which undertakes negotiations and licensing for digital content agreements on behalf of UK universities, first signed an agreement with the open access publisher Frontiers in September 2019. This agreement has just been renewed for one year. JISC member universities will benefit from a 10% national discount rate on publication costs. All submitted articles remain subject to Frontiers’ editorial processes, including peer-review, and all accepted articles are published under an open license (CC-BY) that allows authors (or their institutions) to retain copyright.