Celebrating One Year of EDCH Training: A conversation with the team
The EDCH (European Diamond Capacity Hub) Training platform celebrates one year of building skills and expertise in Diamond Open Access (OA) across borders and disciplines. To mark the occasion we sat with the team behind the platform to discuss the journey so far, and what lies ahead.
What was the original ambition of this service, and how has it progressed so far?
The platform was originally built within the DIAMAS project to host the training programme developed as part of the project’s key outputs: 13 courses for editors, publishers, librarians, service providers, institutional staff and the wider scholarly communication community, covering different aspects of Diamond OA publishing – from editorial workflows and open science practices to sustainability, governance, and more technical aspects.
But the ambition was always higher: we wanted a dedicated and dynamic space for building skills and competences across the Diamond OA publishing community, and a training platform that would grow through contributions from that same community.
The XML publishing course, added in May 2026, is the first concrete example of this: it came out of a collaboration between our team and members of the CRAFT-OA project, and it paves the way to other partnerships to come.
What kind of response have you had from the community?
We've had over 140 participants from 38 countries, with continuous engagement throughout the year. The feedback has been positive overall, and has been invaluable in shaping what comes next, confirming our directions, sparking new ideas, and helping us prioritise. Some learners told us they'd value live formats, others asked about certificates of attendance and participation. We also got to know more about their learning needs: more specific topics, advanced levels, and content adapted to their local context and the evolving realities of the field.
How does that feed into what you're working on now and what’s coming up next?
In many ways, actually, as much of this is being developed as part of the AEGIS-OA project. Live webinars are now possible thanks to a new plugin we've just integrated, and we're expanding the catalogue to cover OA books – journals have been the main focus so far. A certification framework is also planned, as is multilingual content – not just translation, but adaptation to different local contexts.
Beyond all this, our bigger focus right now is opening the platform to contributions. We want to train trainers and support them in building their own courses – creating, sharing, adapting each other's work, collaborating across the community. The platform is there to make that possible, and to ensure that openness comes with quality and coherence. That's the kind of space we're trying to build.
Looking back, what are you most proud of from this first year?
More than anything, we're grateful for all the people that made this year possible: colleagues, trainers, reviewers, learners, everyone who gave their time and expertise to this new service. The quality of what they brought, as well as their trust and commitment, is what we're most proud of. Here's to more of it in the year ahead – and if you haven't yet, come and join us!
The EDCH Training team
Karla Avanço, Marguerite Jan, Laurent Delvalle