Seven years after the publication of Open Divide: Critical Studies on Open Access in 2018, which challenged dominant narratives in scholarly publishing, a new lecture series is organized by Joachim Schöpfel (Université de Lille), Ulrich Herb (Saarland University), and Niels-Oliver Walkowski (University of Luxembourg). This twelve-month initiative, Open Divide 2025/2026, aims to provide a critical platform for discussion on the current and future state of Open Access.
Three lectures have already taken place, featuring leading voices from academia, libraries, and publishing. The series addresses a wide range of timely and often contentious topics:
the evolving role of libraries
sustainability and long-term preservation
governance and commercialization
equity, the Global South, and alternative publishing models (including shadow libraries and commons-based systems)
and, of course, the wider societal impacts of Open Science policies.
While the lecture series does not focus exclusively on Diamond Open Access, many of the themes explored—especially around equity, non-commercial alternatives, and sustainability—are directly relevant to diamond models.For anyone interested in how diamond OA fits within broader transformations in academic publishing, this series offers valuable critical context.
July 23, 2025, 5 pm CEST, Long-Term Preservation of Open Access Publications: Facts, Current Practices, and Future Outlook
Registration:for Uni.LU @mikael.laakso, Associate Professor in Information Studies, Tampere University, Finland
This talk explores how Open Access challenges small publishers to scale, optimize workflows, and adopt AI to stay competitive.