Who we are
Diamond Ireland is a nationally funded project building the capacity for diamond open access publishing on the island of Ireland. We are hosted across a consortium of Irish higher education institutions and funded by the Higher Education Authority through the National Open Research Forum.
The Hub is the coordinating function: advocacy, standards, training, community and evidence. Diamond Ireland Press is the publishing platform, the place where journals actually live. Keeping the two separate means editors get a stable publishing environment while the national conversation happens somewhere it can be found.
Principles and goals
Five commitments shape what we build and what we decline to build.
- No fees at either end. Not to authors, not to readers. A model that shifts the charge rather than removing it is not diamond.
- Community governance. Editorial and strategic control stays with the scholarly communities that generate the research.
- Open infrastructure. Open-source software, open standards, persistent identifiers, and no lock-in that would make leaving expensive.
- Bibliodiversity. Support for disciplines, languages and formats that commercial publishing serves poorly, including Irish-language scholarship.
- Sustainability before scale. A small number of well-supported titles is worth more than a large number of abandoned ones.
Governance
The project is directed by a steering group drawn from the partner institutions, advised by an independent advisory board, and delivered by three work packages.
| Body | Composition | Decides | Meets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steering group | One representative per partner institution | Budget, work programme, partnership agreements | Quarterly |
| Advisory board | Independent Irish and international members | Advisory only: strategy, standards, external review | Twice yearly |
| Editors' forum | Editors of hosted titles | Platform priorities, editorial policy, service levels | Twice yearly |
| Project team | Work package leads and delivery staff | Day-to-day delivery | Fortnightly |
The team
Advocacy and community
Communications, events, the community of practice, and the national evidence base.
Platform and services
Hosting, onboarding, technical standards, indexing and preservation.
Sustainability
Costing models, funding routes and the institutional case for continuation.
How we got here
- 2024, feasibility study. A pilot assessed whether a shared national platform was viable and what it would cost to run.
- 2025, platform launch. Diamond Ireland Press goes live with the first hosted titles on OJS.
- 2026, national node. Funding awarded to build the coordinating Hub, expand hosting, and establish the community of practice.
- 2027 onward, sustainability. Transition from project funding to a shared institutional model.
Want your institution involved?
Partnership can mean hosting a title, contributing expertise, or joining the funding base.