The 3 July UNESCO event

[johanrooryck]

The UNESCO event on 3jul25, ‘Presenting the Results of UNESCO’s Global Consultation Survey on Diamond Open Access’, marked an important moment. The results of the survey show that 82% of respondents express a wish to organise global efforts for Diamond OA with the leadership of regional entities and support from UNESCO. That gives UNESCO a mandate in the global Diamond OA space. The event also may be in indeed of some contextualisation, since some of the signalling may not be clear to our community. First of all, it was symbolically very important that the topic was introduced by two Assistant Director Generals, Lidia Brito and Tawfik Jelassi, high ranking officials in the UNESCO ecosystem. It was also notable that they stayed until the end of the presentation, which is unusual. I have been informed that UNESCO is particularly interested in Diamond Open Access for reasons beyond Open Science: (1) the Sustainable Development Goals, especially in the area of knowledge sharing and digital infrastructure for education, and (2) the Global Digital Compact, where UNESCO feels Diamond OA can play a major role. I believe it is important that we develop these arguments ourselves a bit more in the EDCH community, in the interest of a Global Diamond Framework supported by the soft power of UNESCO.