KnE Publishing shares valuable insights at leading events
On January 29, 2025
December was extremely busy for scholarly communications conference-goers, with events happening across the world covering everything from AI and FAIR data to research integrity and open access publishing models. KnE Publishing was thrilled to be able to attend and present at a number of events, represented by our Chief Academic Officer, Dr Emily Choynowski – including The Integrity of Scientific Publishing in the AI Era organised by King Saud University (home to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s largest open access journal portfolio), E-AGE24 organised by the Arab States Research and Education Network, and the 2nd Global Summit on Diamond Open Access held in Cape Town.

As a mission-driven publisher based in Dubai and supporting diamond open access journals in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and South America – we are well-positioned to offer unique insights into key market trends and client needs, and we were delighted to be able to share some of these insights with our fellow conference presenters and delegates.
In particular, we shared some initial findings from an ongoing project to map the open access journal landscape across the Arab region, using data kindly provided by D.O.A.J. and PKP. The purpose of the project is to map the journals by subject, language, location, indexing and financial model, to better understand the region’s scholarly communications ecosystems, and to make this analysis freely available for the region’s stakeholders. It is our hope that we will be able to publish a comprehensive data-map of the journal landscape, together with our in-depth analysis and evaluations, to help the region’s learned societies and universities in their strategic decision making,
Meanwhile, at the 2nd Global Summit on Diamond Open Access we focused on the financial underpinnings for ‘diamond open access publishing’, based on our experiences as publishing partners for universities and funders. This paper offered practical, scalable guidelines regarding the financial and human commitments required to publish an open access journal, focusing on the post-acceptance workflows. We shared this information because, while everyone in the scholarly communications ecosystem agrees that developing Diamond journals requires investment, the precise nature of the investment required – in digital tools, in human capacities, and in cold hard cash – is not really discussed. Yet understanding these financial details is a vital piece of the puzzle, and we therefore believe it should be integral to any discussion regarding the future of diamond open access, and how to support it.
Attending these events, and sharing our insights and experiences, is a key element of our activities, and contributes to the broader company vision of working together towards a more knowledgeable world. It was therefore an especial pleasure and a privilege to be involved in the 2nd Global Summit on Diamond Open Access, and help contribute to the Toluca-Cape Town Declaration on Diamond Open Access. The principles outlined in the declaration concerning scholarly knowledge as a public good and a human right, together with the explicit commitment to regional and language diversity, represent the foundational cornerstones of our publishing division – which was launched to support and advance the dissemination of local and localized research, ensuring accessibility for local and global audiences.
