CRAFT-OA – Creating a Robust Accessible Federated Technology for Open Access

After several decades of evolving, Open Access (OA) publishing is now at the centre of scientific communication, providing access to scientific publications without barriers. In Diamond Open Access, authors can publish free of charge as the institutional sector with universities, research institutions or libraries provide the necessary technological infrastructure. While the commercial model of Open Access dominates in anglophone journals from the Global North, the Diamond OA model shows a much higher level of diversity and origin.

The publishing landscape for Open Access journals in Europe is highly diverse. However, often scattered among various organisations and institutions, many of these publishing services struggle to reach the necessary professionalisation and maturity levels required in state-of-the-art Open Access publishing.

CRAFT-OA (Creating a Robust Accessible Federated Technology for Open Access) aims to change that. The project’s target is to make the Open Access landscape more resilient by centralising expertise, collaboration and a joint visibility/indexing layer. The project focuses on four threads of activities to improve the technical and organisational infrastructure of Diamond OA:

1. Provide technical improvements for journal platforms and journal software.
2. Build communities of practice to foster overall infrastructure improvement.
3. Increase visibility, discoverability and recognition for Diamond OA publishing.
4. Integrate Diamond OA publishing with EOSC and other large-scale data aggregators.

CRAFT-OA’s 23 consortium partners from 14 European countries are all engaged in institutional publishing and its infrastructures, and committed to sustaining and developing capacities in the field. Many CRAFT-OA partners are leading organisations at national and European levels in terms of open publishing, and represent internationally visible centres of expertise in Open Science and FAIR implementation with strong connections to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

Within 36 months, CRAFT-OA will deliver technical and community tools, training events, training materials, information, and services for the Diamond OA institutional publishing environment. It will foster communities of practice with the capacity to sustain the project improvements over time. 

Group photo at the event “Kicking-Into CRAFT-OA” in March 2023. ©Martin Liebetruth

Date: April 2024

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