A Diamond Journal
Global Africa is a diamond open access publisher. All articles are available online for free upon release, in full text, at no cost to the reader and without any associated processing fees (Article Processing Charge - APC) for the authors or their institutions, in accordance with the Diamond Open Access publishing model. By removing the financial barriers for both authors and readers and offering a high-quality multilingual journal, we hope to significantly increase the share of African contributions to global research.
We believe that not only can open science promote multilingualism but also rapidly put an end to the epistemic injustice affecting research in the Global South.
Epistemic Justice & the Global South
Most academic publications remain inaccessible to researchers in the Global South. This is particularly true for researches in Sub-Saharan Africa, for whom it is also quite difficult to publish in reputable international journals. The main reasons for this epistemic injustice are, among others:
Open Access offers an opportunity to reduce these imbalances in the academic publishing market and democratize the production, dissemination, and access to knowledge. We subscribe to the open access philosophy and commitment to turn knowledge into a genuine public good by publishing and archiving the findings of researchers from the Global South and the Global North in free open access online journals and free digital archives as defined by the Berlin Agreement in 2003.
Our Open Access Principles
Global Africa's open access policy is built on four interconnected dimensions of openness:
The Diamond Open Access Model
The Diamond Open Access model is a publishing approach where neither authors nor readers pay any fees. The costs of publishing are entirely absorbed by the journal's institutional funders and partners. This model stands in contrast to both traditional subscription journals (where readers pay) and Gold Open Access (where authors pay APCs).
Berlin Declaration (2003): Global Africa subscribes to the principles of the Berlin Agreement on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, which defines open access as providing a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly.
License & Copyright
All articles published in Global Africa are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution — Non Commercial license. Authors retain copyright of their work.
| Element | Policy | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Copyright | Authors retain full copyright of their work | Authors retain |
| License | Creative Commons Attribution — Non Commercial (CC BY-NC) | CC BY-NC |
| Reproduction | Free to share and adapt for non-commercial purposes with attribution | Permitted |
| Commercial use | Requires prior written permission from the journal | On request |
| Self-archiving | Authors may deposit their final accepted manuscript in institutional repositories | Permitted |
| DOI | A Digital Object Identifier is assigned to each published article | Assigned |
Long-term Archiving
Global Africa is committed to the long-term preservation and accessibility of all published content. The journal's archiving strategy ensures that articles remain available and discoverable for future generations of researchers, regardless of changes in technology or publishing platforms.
For any questions regarding the journal's open access policy, licensing, or archiving practices, please contact the editorial team at redaction@globalafricasciences.org.