Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South, a multi-institutional initiative launched in 2018 that develops infrastructure, policies and advocacy for non-commercial, community-led open-access scholarly communication.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 21 May 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
A Latin American humanities journal adopts the Marcalyc XML toolkit developed by AmeliCA.
Is an instance
A national consortium uses AmeliCA's policy framework when designing a regional OA strategy.

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
Designing an OA mandate that would force Latin American journals to adopt APCs, contrary to AmeliCA principles.
Not an instance
Citing AmeliCA only as a developing-region case rather than as a global model.

Editorial commentary

AmeliCA (Conocimiento Abierto para America Latina y el Sur Global) was founded by Redalyc-UAEM, CLACSO, UNESCO, the University of Antioquia and other partners. It promotes diamond OA models, multilingual scholarship, and infrastructure independence from commercial vendors. Notable outputs include its critique of Plan S's reliance on APC business models, its publishing-platform tooling (XML-based Marcalyc), and advocacy materials supporting Latin American policy positions in international OA forums. It is one of the most-cited counterweights to Northern, APC-driven OA reform narratives.

References

amelica.org. Becerril-Garcia A, Aguado-Lopez E 'AmeliCA: A community-driven sustainable framework' 2018.

Also known as

AmeliCA · Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="AmeliCA (concept)"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/amelica-concept" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/amelica-concept",
  "name": "AmeliCA (concept)",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/amelica-concept",
  "description": "Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South, a multi-institutional initiative launched in 2018 that develops infrastructure, policies and advocacy for non-commercial, community-led open-access scholarly communication.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/knowledge-equity#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/amelica-concept",
  "sameAs": [
    "AmeliCA",
    "Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global South"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-05-21T02:22:56",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

Referenced across the research world

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