At TU Delft Library, we’re taking bold steps to address the evolving landscape of scholarly communication. We are committed to advancing open access that not only shared knowledge, but is financially sustainable and supports innovation in scientific publishing.
This is why we are excited to introduce the Scholarly Communications Fund.
As we have written elsewhere, the current publishing environment is ripe for transformation. Many researchers and institutions, including UNESCO, the European Union, and the League of European Research Universities, are advocating for more equitable and open research dissemination. In alignment with these global movements, we aim to champion alternatives that offer greater autonomy and fairness in sharing research outputs.
A significant part of our strategy is the protection and promotion of small, non-commercial publishers, who play a crucial role in maintaining diversity and inclusivity in scientific communication. Equally important are the members of a bubbling ecosystem of new ideas for publishing – whether that be for testing the Publish, Review, Curate business model; exploring new forms of aggregation, or systems that help recognise new forms of intellectual input to research output. (For a non-comprehensive list of such infrastructures, see the list below)
Our Scholarly Communication Fund is designed to support both these immediate and long-term innovations in publishing. By investing in Diamond OA platforms and open infrastructures, we aim to provide more inclusive and sustainable publication options for our authors.
It is expected that there will be two routes for spending the money in these funds – just as with ‘traditional’ collections within the library. The first will be via nominations from individual TU Delft researchers. Such researchers may have, for example, a pre-print archive they wish to support, or they may wish to ‘flip a journal’, turning it from a closed to an open access model.
The second will be via the Scholarly Communications and Publishing team of the TU Delft Library, who have strategic oversight of the budget for all licences and collections. As other blog posts have indicated, the team will continue to engage with faculties – this ensures the choices are reflective and responsive to the wishes of the researcher community
Further details and guidance will be provided when budgets for 2025 are finalised.
Non-comprehensive list of possible venues for TU Delft Scholarly Communications Fund
This list from 2024 is purely indicative of the type of organisations that the TU Delft Scholarly Communications Fund could support
It does not express any specific support from TU Delft.
| Arc Humanities Press | Knowledge Unlatched | Practical Action |
| ArXiv | Language Science Press | Programming Historian |
| American society for microbiology S2O | Lens.org | PsyArXiv |
| AUP S2O Amsterdam Univ Press | LYRASIS | PubPeer |
| BioRxiv | Manifold | Public Knowledge Project (PKP) |
| CEU Press (Opening the Future) | MathOA | PubPub |
| ChemRxiv | Mattering Press (see ScholarLed) | Punctum Books |
| CLOCKKS | MediArXiv | ResearchEquals |
| COPE | MedRxiv | ScholarLed (consortium) |
| COPIM | Meson Press | SciPost |
| Digizeitschiften | MIT Direct2Open | SIAM |
| DOAB/OAPEN | Open Book Collective | Science Open |
| DOAJ | Open Book Publishers | SCOAP3 |
| DSPACE | Open Citations | SCOSS |
| EDP Sciences (Astronomy & Astrophysics) | Open Library of Humanities | Sherpa/Romeo |
| EduSources | Open Science Framework (OSF) | Sidestone Press |
| EngrXiv | OpenEdition | SIGMA |
| https://scirev.org/ | Openjournals | STORK |
| JOTE (Journal of Trial and Error) | OPERAS | T&F Open Pilot |
| Journal of City Climate Policy & Economy | ORCID | Zenodo |
| Journal of Open Source Software | Peer Community In (PCI) | |
| PeerJ |