International Open Access Week focuses on the cost of knowledge
This year’s OA Week theme is “The Cost of Knowledge.” The aim is to encourage reflection on why the cost of knowledge continues to rise. In principle, we recognize that knowledge belongs to everyone, yet access to knowledge and the sharing of knowledge are becoming increasingly expensive. The concentration of content and infrastructure in the hands of a small number of commercial actors does not help the situation.
Open access publishing alone does not provide a solution to this problem. Although there are thousands of free, non-profit open access journals, the majority of publications still appear in journals owned by large commercial publishers (see, for example, Shu & Larivière, 2023). For this reason, attention in Europe has gradually shifted toward a more sustainable model of open publishing from the perspectives of both economic sustainability and knowledge sovereignty: Diamond OA. In the Diamond model, publication channels are not funded through subscription fees or article processing charges, but through mechanisms such as membership fees. Furthermore, the owners of these publication channels are primarily public or other non-profit organizations (see, for example, UNESCO; Rooryck, J., 2026).
Background
International Open Access Week aims to raise awareness about the benefits of open access publishing, promote best practices, and engage new audiences to help make open access the “new normal” in science. The week was initiated by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), an international consortium of academic libraries. Throughout the week, a wide range of conferences and webinars will take place, many of which are open to the public. You can explore the events at https://www.openaccessweek.org/2026-events
