We’re pleased to announce that DOAJ has signed a three-year service agreement with the German Research Foundation (DFG). This partnership will focus on raising the visibility of German open access journals, particularly diamond journals and those funded by the DFG.
DOAJ’s indexing criteria are widely seen as a ‘gold standard’ in open access for quality and trustworthiness, and our metadata is included across library discovery systems and other services worldwide. DOAJ currently contains nearly 300 journals from Germany that don’t charge any fees, and this collaboration aims to support more German open access journals through the DOAJ indexing process, enhancing their discoverability and reputation.
The agreement includes an analysis of the challenges preventing German diamond open access journals from being indexed in DOAJ. By working with publishers to address these obstacles, we aim to increase the number of German journals meeting our quality standards. This will benefit researchers, libraries, and the broader academic community by making it easier to identify high-quality open access publications.
The agreement co-incides with DFG’s launch of its national Diamond Capacity Centre: the Service Centre for Diamond Open Access (SeDOA). DOAJ’s collaboration with SeDOA will provide training and support for Diamond Open Access journals published at German universities and research institutions. Improving publication standards and visibility for these diamond open access journals will ensure they are seen as attractive publication venues.
“This collaboration with DFG and the launch of SeDOA marks a significant step in increasing the visibility and quality of German diamond open access journals,” said Joanna Ball, DOAJ’s Managing Director, adding, “We are keen to extend this model of support and partnership to other national research funders and emerging national and regional capacity centres to strengthen diamond open access.”
DFG media release: https://www.dfg.de/de/aktuelles/neuigkeiten-themen/info-wissenschaft/2025/ifw-25-33
