The Diamond OA Standard (DOAS) is one of the main outputs of the DIAMAS project. DOAS sets out standards for Diamond publishing of scholarly journals in the broadest sense.

A scholarly publisher is an entity engaged in academic publishing, characterised by the dissemination of scholarly content (journals and books) conducted by an organisation, its subunits, or an individual associated with the organisation. Publishers have ownership of publishing titles/assets, decide on governance of these titles/assets, or at least have editorial responsibility for their publishing titles. In other words, scholarly publishers have legal, ethical, or/and scientific responsibility for scholarly publishing, irrespective of whether they also have editorial control over what is published. Although they often provide different services, scholarly publishers do not belong to the category of Service Providers (SPs), i.e. commercial or non-commercial entities inside or outside the organisation that provide specific services to scholarly publishers. SPs have limited responsibility for specific activities in the publishing process, and do not have final responsibility for the published titles.

‘No fee’ publishing models are collectively known as Diamond OA. Many scholarly publishers in the European Research Area (ERA) are already fully in line with the Diamond model, which is considered as the ideal, most
equitable, end state of scholarly publishing. At the same time, the scholarly publishing landscape also includes a varied subset of publishers who are not yet fully Diamond OA, and partly rely on subscriptions, print sales, and, marginally, Article Processing Charges (APCs) for their diverse revenue streams. Some publishing initiatives may also restrict publication for authors, for instance to authors funded by a specific funder. We coin the term ‘diamondisation’ for scholarly publishers that are moving towards fully Diamond OA. DOAS and its subsequent iterations include a set of quality criteria for Diamond publishing initiatives, though most of the items apply as quality hallmarks for any publishing business model.

DOAS is based on the seven core components of scholarly publishing outlined in the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access (Ancion et al. 2022, 4), which were subsequently revised and modified by the DIAMAS project
team. These are:

1. Legal ownership, mission and governance
2. Open Science
3. Editorial management, editorial quality and research integrity
4. Technical service efficiency
5. Visibility, communication, marketing, and impact
6. Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB), multilingualism and
   gender equity

DOAS applies to scholarly journals, underlying the goal to set a common quality standard for publishing as a public good, i.e. defined and controlled by scholarly communities, thus guaranteeing that academic contributions in scholarly journals are also a public good.