One year of EDCH Advocates: building awareness for Diamond Open Access
One year ago, the EDCH welcomed its first cohort of Advocates, comprising an active group of professionals committed to promoting Diamond Open Access (OA) within their institutions, countries, and respected communities.
Since then, our Advocates have helped raise awareness of Diamond OA in many different ways. They attended events presenting the EDCH and Diamond OA, participated in forums and helped introduce the EDCH and its services to new audiences strengthening the European Diamond OA ecosystem.
Bringing EDCH services closer to communities
One of the key roles of EDCH Advocates is to connect their communities with the services and resources developed by the European Diamond Capacity Hub.
Across Europe, Advocates have promoted the EDCH Registry, introduced colleagues to Diamond OA resources during institutional training sessions, shared information through social media and library guides, and encouraged publishers and organisations to become part of the EDCH community.
Several Advocates have also explored new ways of increasing the visibility and discoverability of Diamond OA journals. For example, developing a prototype search tool designed to search across multiple journal databases simultaneously, with the long-term ambition of incorporating data from the Diamond Discovery Hub (DDH). By openly sharing the prototype and documentation, the project demonstrates how community-led innovation can support more accessible scholarly publishing.
Building awareness through local communities
Throughout the year, EDCH Advocates have represented the EDCH and presented on Diamond OA at conferences, workshops, webinars, institutional meetings, and discussions with national and European stakeholders. Others have incorporated EDCH resources into internal Open Science training or connected with emerging National Capacity Centres (NCCs) to explore future collaborations.
These activities may differ in scale and scope, but together they contribute to the shared objective of helping researchers, publishers, service providers, libraries, and funders better understand the opportunities offered by Diamond OA and the support available through the EDCH.
Reflections from our Advocates
We asked our dedicated advocates to share more about their own experience.
Here’s what they had to say:
“It was a great opportunity to keep informed of cutting-edge developments in Diamond Open Access, gain a deeper understanding of different national contexts, develop your professional network, and contribute to positive change in scholarly communications and research culture.”
“It has been a great experience being part of the first team of advocates for EDCH. It is a privilege interacting with likeminded people who care about, believe in and support diamond open access initiatives. Thank you very much, EDCH, for this opportunity, especially to Marion Paulhac for her engagement, enthusiasm and guidance during my first year as an EDCH advocate!”
“I believe that the initiative to establish the EDCH represents a step forward for diamond open access, facilitates its dissemination and increases the visibility of journals that meet its criteria. The resources it provides are universally accessible and free of charge to users, which is also in line with the principles of open access.”
We would like to thank all of our EDCH Advocates for their enthusiasm, commitment, and continued support over the past year. Every presentation, conversation, recommendation, and new connection helps bring community-led scholarly publishing closer to researchers and institutions across Europe.
Interested in becoming an EDCH Advocate? Stay tuned! Our next call for Advocates will open in Autumn 2026.