Institutions rely on open infrastructure every day, yet many of these essential infrastructures operate on fragile  budgets. While institutions have long invested in research outputs, including journa...

25 Aug 2026 - Institutions rely on open infrastructure every day, yet many of these essential infrastructures operate on fragile budgets. While institutions have long invested in research outputs, including journals, books, databases, publishing agreements, services, and research programmes, there is growing recognition that the infrastructure enabling research to be discoverable, accessible, reusable, and preserved is an equally important investment. We previously shared four talking points for making the case to support open infrastructure (see: “Why support open infrastructures?”): 1. Open infrastructures are accountable to their communities, not to shareholders 2. Open infrastructures add balance to a system often dominated by commercial actors 3. Open infrastructures can interoperate, building a network of open information 4. Open infrastructures are more transparent in terms of finances and governance In this post, we build on those ideas with five practical principles that can foster and guide sustainable support to open infrastructure – the essential platforms and services that underpin open science. These suggestions can help institutions build engagement, secure support, and make sustainable investment to a globally open research ecosystem. ### **1. Know what you are already using** Open infrastructure can be both an end-user resource and the underlying foundation that supports other scholarly communications systems. As research infrastructure becomes more complex and sophisticated, its costs, governance, and operations can be hidden from the very people whose work depends on it and from those who make financial decisions. It is important to acknowledge the full range of open infrastructure institutions rely on. So the first step is simply making that invisible dependency visible. Start by mapping the open infrastructure embedded in your institution’s research workflows through the research lifecycle, including data management, library systems, and publishing operations. The SCOSS Family currently includes 19 endorsed infrastructures spanning the research lifecycle, from discovery tools and publishing platforms to preservation services and metadata systems. Your institution may be already relying on several of them every day. You may also discover that there are opportunities to adopt more open infrastructure services and to move away from costly proprietary ones. Once you’ve mapped your own infrastructure dependencies and interests, widen the lens. Building a resilient scholarly ecosystem means supporting not only the infrastructure your institution uses directly, but also the shared infrastructure that underpins the wider research ecosystem and open science goals. ### **2. Treat infrastructure as a shared responsibility** No single institution can maintain open scholarly infrastructure on its own. Since these systems are used by thousands or in some cases millions of people every day, sustaining them is a shared responsibility. Organizations that rely on them and have the capacity to contribute can help ensure they remain available for everyone. One of the central ideas behind the SCOSS model is collective action. Hundreds of institutions making modest contributions (e.g. the cost of one APC) can support the essential infrastructures that underpin research. By sharing responsibility for these common resources, institutions strengthen not only their own research ecosystem but the global scholarly community. SCOSS funding guidelines below offer a general sense of contribution levels. Actual amounts vary: each infrastructure sets its own target based on its sustainability needs; and institutions and consortia are free to determine their own levels of contribution toward that target. This is one example. Consider what the scholarly ecosystem already spends on one part of the system: research outputs. A single country can spend €100 million or more per year on journal access through transformative agreements and article processing charges. In contrast, the combined annual operating costs of 12 SCOSS-endorsed infrastructures that self-identify as directly supporting Diamond Open Access come to approximately €6 million (see recent SCOSS blog). When compared with the cost of a single APC, the value proposition is equally compelling. The equivalent expenditure of a single APC, €2,000, can help sustain an infrastructure that serves the entire research community. ### **3. Prioritize community-governed infrastructure** Community-governed, non-commercial open infrastructure is mission-driven rather than profit-driven. This keeps essential systems and their development aligned with scholarly needs, discoverability, accessibility, and long-term reuse, rather than market incentives. And, openness is not just philosophical, it’s practical. Non-commercial infrastructures are built for openness and transparency, with open standards, persistent identifiers, and open APIs that enable interoperability and portability. That means data can be moved, systems can evolve, and no single provider becomes a single point of control. This reduces vendor lock-in and increases accountability. See some examples of how SCOSS-endorsed infrastructures collaborate and interoperate. ### **4. Fund it as core infrastructure, not a project** Sustainability requires predictable, recurring support. Innovative open infrastructure is often initially developed through grants or short-term initiatives, but it cannot be sustained that way. Unlike projects with a defined endpoint, infrastructure requires ongoing maintenance, coordination, and development. Highly strategic institutions include funding open infrastructure as a recurring budget line rather than as an optional add-on. These investments in open infrastructure build long-term capacity for the scholarly community and strengthen scholarly sovereignty. Working through a consortium is an excellent starting point. Consortia play a key role here by pooling contributions, reducing administrative burden, and some also enable multi-year commitments. National and regional consortia such as Sikt (Norway), CSAL (Switzerland), CRKN and CARL (Canada), Jisc (UK), and Couperin (France) have already demonstrated the strength of this approach. Learn how consortia help sustain open infrastructures from a recent webinar with leading consortia, see here. ### **5. Start small and stay consistent** Progress does not require a comprehensive strategy on day one. Institutions can take a first step by supporting a SCOSS-endorsed infrastructure with a single or multi-year contribution, and this can amount to just the cost of an average APC or less. What matters is sustained, predictable funding practices, not scale. The hope is that more and more institutions, in more and more countries, will follow suit, making their own modest investments. Contributions compound into meaningful collective impact. Increased funding enables infrastructures to grow, innovate, and build long-term resilience. Because they are community-led, that growth is shaped by the people who use and support them, ensuring infrastructures continue to evolve with the needs of the research community. **GET STARTED TODAY** Explore the SCOSS-endorsed infrastructures seeking your support. Identify the infrastructures most aligned with your institution’s mission and values, and take the first step, whether that is a conversation with a budget holder, an email to your consortium, or a first pledge.

Institutions rely on open infrastructure every day, yet many of these essential infrastructures operate on fragile  budgets. While institutions have long invested in research outputs, including…

We are delighted to welcome Lionel Maurel and Michael Vandenburg to the SCOSS Board. Lionel Maurel brings a French and European perspective. He heads the Publications and Indicators Unit within the…

The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice and Housing is seeking to appoint two Members to the Scottish Commission on Social Security.

25 May 2026 - What if the global backbone of Diamond OA cost less than a single country’s journal access and APC bill? For many, it does. Put it into perspective: the combined operating costs of the 12 SCOSS-endorsed Diamond OA infrastructures come to approximately €6 million annually. Not per country, not per institution. Total. Meanwhile, a single country can spend €100 million or more per year on journal access and APCs. The real choice is about shifting from a fee-for-service model (€100M for in-country access only) to an investment model (€6M in global access). The point is not that these costs are directly interchangeable. It is that the research community routinely spends far more on temporary access and transactional publishing fees than it would take to sustain shared infrastructure with long-term global benefit. **Two very different paths** Funding the transition to open access takes many forms. Transformative agreements, article processing charges, and journal access fees can cost a single country €100 million or more per year, often buying access for just that country, for just that year. By contrast, €6 million annually funds all 12 SCOSS-endorsed infrastructures* combined. An investment in these services doesn’t just open doors for one institution or one nation. It sustains the shared foundation that makes Diamond OA possible for everyone, everywhere. **The infrastructure behind Diamond OA** Diamond OA is free for both authors and readers, but it is not cost-free. It depends on community-governed infrastructure that provides the tools, platforms, and services relied on every day across the research lifecycle. SCOSS-endorsed infrastructures that directly support Diamond OA include: AJOL, AmeliCA, arXiv, DOAB, DOAJ, Episciences, LA Referencia, OAPEN, Open Policy Finder, PKP, Redalyc, and SciPost Together, they support journals, books, repositories, discovery systems, policy tools, and publishing platforms across every continent. These are not peripheral services. They are part of the operational backbone that allows Diamond OA to function at scale. **A collective investment in the commons** Sustaining these infrastructures doesn’t require any single organisation to shoulder the burden alone. By pooling resources, libraries, research funders, and consortia can collectively ensure that this essential infrastructure remains stable and well-supported. A durable, coordinated commitment of roughly €6 million per year would not only keep these services running, it would free them from the cycle of perpetual fundraising, giving them the stability to grow and improve. Diamond OA works because it’s built on shared, community-owned infrastructure. Keeping that infrastructure healthy is one of the smartest and most cost-effective investments the research community can make. **How you can help** Whether your institution has pledged before or is considering it for the first time, sustained, ongoing support is what keeps these infrastructures running. Every contribution counts. ✅ Explore the full list of SCOSS-endorsed infrastructures ✅ Identify the services that align with your strategic priorities ✅ Make a pledge or renew your support today *Operational budget figures are drawn from the data provided at the time each infrastructure submitted an application to SCOSS.

What if the global backbone of Diamond OA cost less than a single country’s journal access and APC bill? For many, it does.  Put it into perspective: the combined operating costs of the 12…

14 May 2026 - The work that keeps open infrastructure running is not always visible, but it is essential. Behind every journal, data, monograph, and software repository, every indexing service, and every publishing platform is a team maintaining systems, supporting users, improving processes, responding to evolving community needs, and keeping critical scholarly services operating year-round. It is foundational work, and researchers, libraries, institutions, and the general public benefit every day because it gets done. Each year, SCOSS asks infrastructures in the current funding cycle to share annual reports on how SCOSS-supported funding was used in the previous year, along with updates on activities that strengthen long-term sustainability. This year’s reports include updates from Round 5 ( RDA and Software Heritage) and Round 6 (AJOL, Episciences, Make Data Count, and SciPost). Thanks to community support from institutions and consortia, 2025 was a year of meaningful progress, with expanded services, growing reach, stronger partnerships, and continued collaboration. **Highlights from 2025** **AJOL:** Significantly expanded Diamond Open Access support by onboarding 59 new journals and converting three existing ones, while delivering training webinars to strengthen capacity among African scholarly publishers. **Episciences:** Raised its profile through conference presence and a new newsletter, and implemented technical integrations with key open science infrastructures. **Make Data Count:** Advanced global data citation infrastructure and usage metrics, ran a Kaggle competition to improve dataset-article linking, and deepened partnerships with leading research assessment reform organizations. **RDA:** Deepened community engagement in the Global South through targeted webinars. Due to insufficient funding, delayed planned standards development work. **Software Heritage:** Grew its membership, launched the OSPO-RADAR project to preserve university and lab research software, and expanded its ambassador network and community learning resources. **SciPost:** Grew its journal portfolio and publication output significantly, expanded into Chemistry and Social Sciences, and implemented platform improvements. **Progress and Pressure** At the same time, these reports highlight the ongoing challenges of sustaining essential open infrastructure. Several organizations faced delays in hiring, slower-than-planned technical development, and the administrative demands of securing funding agreements and pledges. These challenges reflect compounding pressures: many organizations are small teams operating with lean resources; all received less funding than they requested, making it harder to execute on their full plans; and competition for that limited funding continues to intensify as the open infrastructure landscape grows. Download the reports in PDF: * Round 5: RDA and Software Heritage * Round 6: AJOL, Episciences, Make Data Count, and SciPost **Thank you** Thank you to everyone who continues to support these essential infrastructures. If you haven’t contributed yet, please consider doing so to help ensure these infrastructures continue to thrive. Learn more about these infrastructures.

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At a time when funding for open science is under growing pressure worldwide, with cuts and political shifts threatening the stability of the tools researchers rely on, this pledge is a welcome show of...

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Swiss academic libraries, members of the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries (CSAL), continue to be among the most consistent and reliable supporters of open science infrastructure.   Once again,…