Charting variety, scope, and impact of open access diamond journals in various disciplines and regions: a survey-based observational study

Purpose: The variety, scope, and impact of open access (OA) diamond journals across disciplines regions from July 22 to September 11, 2020 were charted characterize the current OA landscape.Methods: total number was estimated, including those outside Directory Open Access Journals (DOAJ). distribution regions, disciplines, publisher types described. scope in terms authorship readership investigated. Information collected on linguistic diversity, journal dynamics life cycle, their visibility scholarly databases.Results: is estimated be 29,000. are publish 356,000 articles per year. sector diverse (45% Europe, 25% Latin America, 16% Asia, 5% United States/Canada) (60% humanities social sciences, 22% 17% medicine). More than 70% published by university-owned publishers, university presses. majority small, publishing fewer 25 a English (1,210), Spanish (492), French (342) most common languages main texts. Out 1,619 journals, 1,025 (63.3%) indexed DOAJ, 492 (30.4%) Scopus, 321 (19.8%) Web Science.Conclusion: patterns trends reported herein provide insights into diversity importance landscape accompanying opportunities challenges supporting this model.