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DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)

DOAJ Foundation
Denmark
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About

Launched: 2003
Record Updated: Nov 14, 2025
Discovery system
Index or directory
Open scholarly dataset
DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world and is driven by a growing community. We are committed to ensuring quality content is freely available online for everyone.
Research Organization Registry (Opens in new window)

Mission

DOAJ's mission is to increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language.

DOAJ is committed to being 100% independent and maintaining all of its primary services and metadata as open to everyone.

Key Achievements

  • More than twenty years at the heart of quality, peer-reviewed open access journal publishing, indexing thousands of peer-reviewed, open access scholarly journals.
  • A building block for commercial and non-commercial discovery systems, knowledge bases and search engines: we are a trusted source for millions of articles and thousands of open access journals. Our metadata is ingested and reused across the global discovery and search landscape.
  • DOAJ criteria have become the de facto global standard for open access journals, and we actively promote standards in journal publishing through services such as the OA Journals Toolkit, the Principles of Best Practice and Transparency in Scholarly Publishing, and our global ambassador program.

    • Technical Attributes

    Maintenance Status

    Actively Maintained

    Open Code Repository

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Technical Documentation

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Code License

    Implemented

    Open API

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window) Website (Opens in new window)

    Open Data Statement

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Open Product Roadmap

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Technical Attribute Statements

    Technology Readiness Level

    • Actual system proven in operational environment

    Code Licenses Used

    • Apache License, Version 2.0

    Content Licensing

    Journal metadata is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.

    Copyrights and related rights for article metadata are waived via CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0) Public Domain Dedication.

    Standards

    Integrations


    • B!SON
    • Chronos Hub
    • Clarivate/Proquest suite of products
    • Crossref API
    • Dimensions
    • EBSCO discovery
    • Google Scholar
    • ISSN Portal
    • ISSN ROAD
    • ISSN Keepers
    • Journal Finder Tool
    • Lens
    • OA.Works
    • OCLC
    • OpenAI
    • OpenAlex
    • PKP's OJS plugins
    • Plan S Journal Checker Tool
    • Sherpa/Romeo
    • Unpaywall

    Community Engagement

    Code of Conduct

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Community Engagement

    Implemented

    Community Statements

    User Contribution Pathways

    • Contribute to code
    • Contribute to documentation
    • Contribute to education or training
    • Contribute to user research or user testing
    • Contribute to working groups or interest groups

    Community Engagement Activities

    • Blogs
    • Community calls
    • Conference participation
    • Interest, working, user, or advisory groups
    • Social media
    • User research
    • Volunteer or ambassador network
    • Webinars and training

    Engagement with Values Frameworks

    • FOREST Framework for Values-Driven Scholarly Communication
    • Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism
    • Joint Statement of Principles of the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communication (C4DISC)
    • Principles for Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI)
    • San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)

    SCOSS Participation

    Yes

    More About Community Engagement

    User Contribution Pathways:

    We have a network of over 100 volunteers who review applications. We have regional representation through our Ambassador network. Some of our volunteers and ambassadors have been with us for more than 10 years.

    We have a dedicated community engagement role to ensure that we are in touch with the large number of stakeholder groups that use and rely upon DOAJ. When we move to our new governance structure, we will establish a stakeholder council.

    Our strategy states we will advocate for equity and diversity in global open access journal publishing. To do that, we engage with journal platforms and representative groups from around the world, e.g., the Chinese Academy of Science, KISTI in South Korea, J-STAGE in Japan, Publicera in Sweden, Scielo in Latin America, ASSAf and AJOL in South Africa and more.

    Community Engagement Activities:

  • DOAJ recomitted to the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure in 2025: https://blog.doaj.org/2025/10/20/doaj-recommits-to-the-principles-of-open-scholarly-infrastructure/ and is an active member of the POSI Working Group.
  • Members of the communnity contribute to the quality and accuracy of DOAJ metadata.
  • DOAJ is a signatory and active proponent of the Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism.

    • Policies & Governance

    Governance Summary

    DOAJ is an independent organisation run and managed by the DOAJ Foundation, a non-profit community-governed foundation based in Denmark . DOAJ has a Board of Directors and an Advisory Board, the members of which carry out their duties voluntarily.

    Policies

    Bylaws

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Commitment to Equity & Inclusion

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Privacy Policy

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Web Accessibility Statement

    Implemented
    Applies to Website

    Governance Records

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Governance Structure & Processes

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Transparent Pricing and Cost Expectations

    Implemented
    Website (Opens in new window)

    Policy Statements

    Board Structure

    • Advisory board or steering committee
    Other:
    Foundation Board & Advisory Board

    Community Governance

    • Formal

    Additional Information

    Organizational History

    On 12th May 2003, DOAJ was launched by Lars Bjørnshauge. It was run as a service of Lund University Libraries.

    DOAJ grew over the years and in 2013, it moved to become an independent service managed by IS4OA CIC of which Lars is a director.

    In 2022, IS4OA created a Danish branch to ease an eventual transition of DOAJ out of post-Brexit UK.

    In 2025 the administration of DOAJ moved from Infrastructure Services for Open Access (C.I.C.) to DOAJ Fonden, which is a Foundation registered in Denmark.

    Organizational Structure

    Business or Ownership Model

    Non-profit organization

    Current Affiliations

    Funding

    Primary Funding Source

    • Contributions

    Funding Needs

    Developing enhanced support for diamond journals, including:



    • preservation,
    • enhanced visibility
    • guidance and help for publishers and editors

    Global support for journal publishers and editors through:



    • an extended Ambassador program
    • the appointment of regional co-ordinators
    • new solutions for multilingual metadata and website

    Investment in our technical infrastructure to:



    • use machine learning to automate processes and enable our team to focus on high-value activities.
    • develop our capabilities to ingest articles from journals instead of relying on journal staff to send content to us.
    • strengthen DOAJ’s coverage of trusted journals significantly by supporting integrations and collaboration with global indexes, e.g. Redalyc, Scielo, Latindex, to enhance the visibility of trusted OA globally through library discovery systems and other tools.
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