A diamond open access journal publishes research with no fees for either authors or readers, funded instead by institutions, learned societies, consortia, or public grants rather than article processing charges (APCs). Because these venues sit outside the commercial APC economy, a diamond open access journals list is only useful if paired with a vetting method: checking Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) status, editorial board affiliation, indexing footprint, and membership of bodies such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) or the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). This guide sets out that vetting framework rather than a static title list, which goes stale within months.
Diamond open access is a scholarly publishing model in which a journal or platform provides immediate, fee-free access to readers and charges no publication fee to authors, typically underwritten by universities, libraries, national research infrastructures, or scholarly societies rather than by the market.
- What is a diamond open access journal?
- How do you verify a diamond OA journal is legitimate?
- Do diamond open access journals have an impact factor?
- Does Elsevier publish diamond open access journals?
- Where to find curated diamond OA journal lists
- Answer-first questions on diamond open access
- What this means for authors and institutions
What is a diamond open access journal?
A diamond (sometimes called “platinum”) open access journal removes the fee barrier on both sides: readers never pay to access articles, and authors never pay an APC to publish. According to UNESCO, diamond open access “relies on shared infrastructures and open licensing,” enabling scholarly knowledge to circulate as a digital public good rather than a commercial product.
This distinguishes diamond OA from gold OA (author-paid APC), green OA (self-archived repository copy), and hybrid OA (a subscription journal offering a paid per-article OA option). The table below summarises the four models.
| Model | Author cost | Reader cost | Typical funder |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diamond / platinum OA | None | None | University, society, consortium, or public grant |
| Gold OA | APC (often £1,000-£5,000+) | None | Author’s grant or institution |
| Green OA | None (repository deposit) | None (after embargo) | Institutional repository |
| Hybrid OA | APC on a subscription journal | None for the OA article; subscription for the rest | Author’s grant, subject to funder rules (e.g. cOAlition S restrictions) |
Diamond OA is not a niche curiosity. Analysis cited in Wikipedia’s entry on the model found that diamond journals accounted for 73% of open access journals registered in DOAJ, roughly 10,194 of 14,020 entries at the time of that count — meaning most of the open access journal landscape by title count is already fee-free, even though APC-funded gold OA dominates by article volume and revenue.
How do you verify a diamond OA journal is legitimate?
Legitimacy cannot be assumed just because a journal charges no fee — the absence of an APC removes one predatory-publishing red flag but not all of them. Verification requires checking five independent signals, not a single list.
Check DOAJ inclusion, not just a mention of DOAJ
A journal claiming to be “DOAJ indexed” must actually appear in a live DOAJ search by title or ISSN. DOAJ vets applicants against transparency and best-practice criteria, including a clearly stated peer-review process, an identifiable editorial team, and a disclosed licensing policy, before granting inclusion.
Verify the editorial board independently
Search editorial board members individually on their home institution’s staff pages. A legitimate journal’s board is identifiable, active in the subject area, and reachable outside the journal’s own website — a board that cannot be verified anywhere else is a primary predatory-journal indicator.
Confirm COPE or OASPA membership
Membership of COPE or OASPA signals adherence to a documented code of conduct on peer review, retraction handling, and authorship disputes. Both organisations publish searchable member directories, so membership claims are independently checkable rather than taken on trust.
Cross-check indexing claims
Verify claimed indexing (Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, EBSCOhost) directly in the source database rather than trusting the journal’s own homepage badge. A mismatch between claimed and actual indexing is one of the most common signs of a fabricated or predatory listing.
Check for institutional publishing-service standards
Most existing diamond OA lists name journals but not the infrastructure standards behind them. The EU-funded DIAMAS project, running under Horizon Europe, produced the first common quality standards for the Institutional Publishing Service Providers that operate diamond OA journals, covering governance, infrastructure, and peer-review transparency. A publisher aligned with DIAMAS standards offers a stronger legitimacy signal than directory inclusion alone.
Do diamond open access journals have an impact factor?
Some diamond OA journals carry a Journal Impact Factor or CiteScore; most newer or regionally focused titles do not, since citation-metrics inclusion depends on sustained indexing history in Web of Science or Scopus rather than on the funding model. Absence of an impact factor is not, by itself, a legitimacy red flag — many long-running, reputable diamond OA journals in humanities and regional-language scholarship have never sought Web of Science inclusion because their community does not prioritise it. Authors weighing career or funder requirements should check the specific metric threshold their institution or funder demands rather than assuming all credible journals carry one.
Does Elsevier publish diamond open access journals?
No major Elsevier-owned journal currently operates on a diamond OA model; Elsevier’s open access portfolio runs on gold OA (author-paid APC) or hybrid OA. Authors searching “diamond open access journals Elsevier” typically want a fee-free alternative in the same field — for that, look to university presses, national consortia, and society-run titles such as those in Emerald Publishing’s diamond OA portfolio, rather than the large commercial publishers.
Where to find curated diamond OA journal lists
Rather than one master list, use layered sources and cross-verify each entry against the checklist above:
- DOAJ’s advanced search — filter by “no article processing charges” for a live, continuously updated list.
- National and institutional registries — several university libraries maintain subject- or country-specific curated lists built from national survey data.
- Publisher diamond OA portfolios — some established publishers, including Emerald, operate a defined slate of no-APC titles.
- Medical-field aggregators — for the “diamond open access medical journals” segment, cross-check candidates against PubMed/MEDLINE indexing in addition to DOAJ, since medical publishing carries a higher predatory-journal risk documented by COPE.
A 2021 global survey commissioned by cOAlition S, Science Europe, the French National Research Agency, and Luxembourg’s Fonds National de la Recherche identified an estimated 29,000 diamond OA journals and platforms worldwide, publishing roughly 356,000 articles a year, most run by small, volunteer-supported editorial teams. This scale and fragmentation is why individual-journal verification matters more than trusting any single list.
Answer-first questions on diamond open access
Which journals are Diamond open access?
There is no single fixed set — DOAJ’s advanced search, filtered for “no APC,” is the most reliable live index, currently covering thousands of no-fee titles across every discipline. Publisher portfolios such as Emerald’s diamond OA list and national consortium registries add further verified titles beyond DOAJ’s coverage.
What is meant by diamond open access journal?
A diamond open access journal is one that charges no fee to either authors or readers, funded instead through institutional, societal, or public support. UNESCO frames this as enabling scholarly output to function as a shared digital public good rather than a paid commodity.
What is Diamond or Platinum open access?
“Diamond” and “Platinum” are interchangeable names for the same no-fee, no-APC publishing model; usage varies by region and discipline, with “diamond” more common in European policy documents and “platinum” more common in North American library guidance.
Is Q1 better than Q2 journal?
Yes — Q1 denotes the top 25% of journals by citation metric within a subject category, versus the 25-50th percentile for Q2, but this quartile ranking is independent of funding model. A diamond OA journal can sit in Q1 if it has built sufficient citation history; the fee model and the quartile ranking are unrelated variables.
What this means for authors and institutions
For authors, “no APC” and “legitimate” are separate questions requiring separate checks — a fee-free journal still needs DOAJ, editorial-board, and indexing verification before submission. For research offices advising early-career researchers, a standing internal shortlist cross-verified against DOAJ, COPE, and OASPA membership is more durable than any single external list, since directories update monthly and journals can gain or lose DOAJ status.
As DIAMAS-aligned standards mature, expect institutional publishing-service certification to become a faster legitimacy check, supplementing rather than replacing DOAJ-and-editorial-board verification. Research-administration teams tracking scholarly communication infrastructure can find related context in CASRAI’s research administration resources.
