DOAJ is pleased to announce a Memorandum of Understanding with the State Scientific and Technical Library of Ukraine (SSTL) as a national ambassador institution. The partnership aims to establish a strategic national framework for strengthening open access scholarly publishing in Ukraine. DOAJ and SSTL will work together to support journals in meeting DOAJ’s quality criteria and good scholarly publishing practices, while also promoting the international visibility of Ukrainian open access journals.
Background
After the Ukrainian government launched a national open science plan in 2022, which encouraged Ukrainian journals to apply for DOAJ indexing in DOAJ, DOAJ and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (MES) signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2025 to establish a framework for closer cooperation in support of Ukrainian scholarly publishing and open access. What began as a commitment to cooperate has since become something more significant: a practical example of how international collaboration can support national reform and strengthen the role of open access in a country’s research system.
One of the most visible results of this cooperation emerged in 2026, when Ukraine reformed its national system for recognising scholarly journals. In June 2026, the Ministry of Education and Science published an updated list of Ukrainian scholarly journals in Category B. Under the new rules, journals included in the list are recognised as scholarly publications from 1 June 2026 until 1 June 2029. The reform introduced stronger requirements for the quality of scholarly journals, transparency of editorial policies, publishing ethics, peer review, open access and the accuracy of information published on journal websites. DOAJ inclusion is one of the highest-scoring criteria for inclusion in the new list.
DOAJ and SSTL
To expand long-term support for Ukrainian journals and strengthen their capacity and representation in DOAJ, DOAJ has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the State Scientific and Technical Library of Ukraine (SSTL) as a national ambassador institution. The partnership aims to establish a strategic national framework for strengthening open access scholarly publishing in Ukraine. DOAJ and SSTL will work together to support journals in meeting DOAJ’s quality criteria and good scholarly publishing practices, while also promoting the international visibility of Ukrainian open access journals.
DOAJ Managing Director Joanna Ball notes, “We are delighted to formalise our collaboration with the State Scientific and Technical Library. SSTL understands the Ukrainian research landscape and can work directly with journals to strengthen quality, transparency and good publishing practice. This partnership will help Ukrainian journals connect more effectively with the international open access community and make their research more visible.”
The cooperation will focus not only on helping journals apply to DOAJ, but also on supporting them in understanding and meeting the principles behind DOAJ’s quality criteria and good publishing practice. DOAJ will contribute educational resources, expert knowledge and communication support, including activities aimed at increasing the visibility of Ukrainian journals indexed in DOAJ. DOAJ also intends to provide the SSTL with advance information about future changes to its criteria, policies and technical requirements, helping ensure that Ukrainian journals and the organisations supporting them can respond to developments in international scholarly publishing. The SSTL will provide national coordination and information and educational activities for Ukrainian journals, designate a contact point for cooperation with DOAJ, organise training and other events, support the translation of relevant materials into Ukrainian, and connect the partnership with Ukraine’s national open science infrastructure and networks.
The relevant Ukrainian regulations governing state support for scholarly journals and the formation of the national list are available in Ukrainian through the official legislation portal.
Procedure for forming the List of Ukrainian scholarly journals — MES Order No. 56 (2026): official Ukrainian legislation portal
Finally, Deputy Director for Research and International Affairs at SSTL Tetiana Yaroshenko says, “For the SSTL of Ukraine, this Memorandum is both a recognition of the work Ukrainian editors have done in recent years and a commitment to what comes next. Even in wartime, Ukrainian journals have continued to raise their standards of transparency, peer review and publishing ethics, and the 2026 reform of the national list of scholarly journals has given this work new momentum. As DOAJ’s national ambassador institution, we will help editors not only to meet DOAJ’s criteria, but to make good open access practice part of their everyday editorial work – through training, Ukrainian-language guidance and close links with URIS and the national open science infrastructure. We expect this partnership to bring more Ukrainian journals into DOAJ, make Ukrainian research more visible and trusted internationally, and strengthen Ukraine’s place in the global open science community.”
About SSTL
SSTL is a state-funded, non-profit scientific institution under the authority of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. In accordance with Ukrainian legislation, the SSTL of Ukraine is an integral part of the state information system, the national system of scientific and technical information, and the system of nationwide libraries of national importance. In terms of the content of its collections, it is an interdisciplinary scientific and technical library, and in terms of its purpose, a special library. The SSTL of Ukraine is one of the country’s largest libraries, with a unique multidisciplinary collection of scientific and technical literature and documentation comprising almost 16 million documentary information resources. The SSTL of Ukraine is responsible for the development, operation and administration of the National Electronic Scientific and Information System “URIS”, including its data collection, accumulation, storage, normalisation and processing. One of the SSTL of Ukraine’s current areas of activity is ensuring the development, uninterrupted operation and administration of electronic scientific and information resources, including the Open Ukrainian Scientific Content Initiative. The SSTL of Ukraine provides research institutions, higher education institutions and library users with access to Ukrainian and international electronic databases of scientific information.
About DOAJ
DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of over 23,000 diverse open access journals from around the world, driven by a growing community. It is committed to ensuring quality content is openly available online for everyone. Its mission is to increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language.
