Diamond Journals in the Czech Republic: democratic access to scientific knowledge

13 Mar 2025

Did you know that there are dozens of scientific journals published in the Czech Republic that you can read for free, anytime, anywhere? They are published by scientific and educational institutions in Diamond Open Access, i.e. free for authors and readers. Whether you are interested in history, medicine, art or science, these journals give you access to the latest research without paywalls or fees. In the Czech Republic, Diamond Journals are mainly published by universities, institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences and professional societies. Masaryk University presents its diamond journals via journals.muni.cz.

Masaryk University Press participates in the creation of the Diamond Discovery Hub, a registry of diamond journals published in Europe, as part of our cooperation within the EU-funded CRAFT-OA project. Currently, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is the most comprehensive list of open access journals, but it includes all types of open access journals, not just diamond journals. However, Diamond journals cover a wide variety of topics and disciplines and are well worth a look.

Diamond open access

Diamond Open Access is a democratic and sustainable model of scholarly communication that removes financial barriers and allows equal access to scientific knowledge without having to pay to publish or read articles. Unlike gold open access, where authors pay a fee to publish an article in a journal, or the traditional subscription model, where the reader (or library) pays to read the article, funding for diamond journals is provided by other sources, such as grants or budgets from scientific institutions or consortia.

Key characteristics of Diamond OA:

Community-Led and Academic-Centric: Diamond Open Access models are often operated by academic institutions, scholarly communities, or research networks. They emphasise scholarly integrity, transparency, and collaboration over profit.
Multilingual and Culturally Inclusive: Diamond Open Access supports diverse languages and cultural perspectives, fostering bibliodiversity and enabling knowledge sharing across linguistic and cultural boundaries.
Equity and Accessibility: Diamond Open Access promotes research inclusivity by eliminating fees. It allows researchers in low-resource regions to participate, thus supporting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).