Organised by WACREN within the broader LIBSENSE and AfricaConnect4 initiatives, and held alongside the LIBSENSE Open Science Symposium and WACREN 2026 Conference, the event brings together researchers, librarians, publishers, research networks, and open infrastructure partners from across the region.
The programme addresses the full ecosystem required for sustainable, no-fee Open Access publishing, from editorial governance and quality assurance to metadata interoperability, persistent identifiers, institutional workflows, and communities of practice.
Partners, including DOAJ, DOAB, Crossref, ORCID, EIFL, and Thoth, will contribute expertise spanning journals, books, and the shared technical infrastructure that underpins open scholarly communication.
The day forms part of WACREN’s broader effort to strengthen regional scholarly publishing capacity and ensure that African research and researchers are visible, discoverable, and properly attributed within the global scholarly ecosystem. By aligning standards, open metadata practices, and participation in persistent identifier systems, the event supports the development of a coordinated, community-governed publishing infrastructure that is regionally anchored and globally interoperable.
Hosted in The Gambia at a moment of national research infrastructure development, the Diamond Open Access Day connects regional expertise with national opportunity.
