Sylvie Benzoni

Diamond Open Access Stimulus Fund

Call for proposals

MathOA

The Foundation Mathematics in Open Access (MathOA) actively promotes the adoption of Fair Open Access principles —which includes non-profit status, community ownership, and transparency— in the wider transition towards open access publishing in mathematics.

To this end, the foundation is excited to announce a novel project. We open up a call for mathematicians to propose initiatives for new high-quality Diamond Open Access journals. The successful proposal(s) will be awarded a start-up fund of up to €10k.

Aim

To stimulate the creation of new high-quality Diamond Open Access (free for readers and contributors) journals in mathematics.

In principle, this could include the transition (or ‘flip’) of an existing mathematical journal to the Diamond Open Access model. Nonetheless, the present call is devoted to truly new journals solely. We encourage boards who are seeking advice or support to ‘flip’ their existing journal to a Diamond Open Access one to contact MathOA directly.

What can be applied for

Funding of up to €10k towards start-up costs, such as for a journal website, a publishing platform, DOIs, setup of a non-profit society, creation of a dedicated LATEX class, publicity and administrative costs. The funds are held in escrow by the MathOA Foundation and disbursed on an invoice basis.

Any of the most promising applications (i.e. not only the granted one(s)) will additionally be offered personalized advice on how to set up a journal from the MathOA Foundation and the Platform Wiskunde Nederland (PWN) Publications committee.

Evaluation criteria

Proposals are evaluated based on the following criteria:

  • Scientific quality, relevance, and scope.
  • Urgency and demand (for example, areas with insufficient representation/depth of Fair OA journals, or a newer area that has critical mass).
  • International reach, as well as diversity and balance in the board/team.
  • Soundness and viability of the planning.

The evaluation of proposals is coordinated by the MathOA Diamond Open Access Stimulus Fund jury (Karen Aardal, Jos Baeten, Jop Briët, David Holmes, Ross Kang, Filippo Nuccio, Vic Reiner), and may involve the solicitation of external expert opinions. We anticipate results will be made available in the spring of 2025. The winner(s) will be announced publicly shortly thereafter.

How to apply

The only eligibility requirement for applicants is a professional scientific affiliation.

Proposals should consist of a two- or three-page pdf document, including the name of the journal, a description of scientific scope (with an overview of comparable or most closely related extant journals), a justification of the need for the journal, a prospective initial editorial board (including names and affiliations), a brief outline of editorial policies/structure, a timeline and business plan and a budget. In addition, each applicant in the founding/organizational team should include a short (one-page pdf) CV.

Proposals should take into account various principles of Diamond Open Access and Fair Open Access, which for instance require the establishment of a non-profit society, and eschew the collection of fees from contributors or readers.

The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2024. Send applications to info@mathoa.org. The jury may invite applications. For inquiries about the application procedure write to info@mathoa.org.

Sponsors

MathOA gratefully acknowledges additional funding from the Free University of Amsterdam, CWI, the Foundation Compositio Mathematica, and the University of Amsterdam to realize this initiative.

 

 

 

 

The following scholars endorse our initiative:

  • Sylvie Benzoni (Université de Lyon, Institut Henri Poincaré)
  • Timothy Gowers (Cambridge, Collège de France)
  • Michael Joswig (TU Berlin)
  • Monique Laurent (CWI)
  • Jan van Neerven (TU Delft)
  • Julia Wolf (Cambridge)
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Sylvie Benzoni

Annals of Formalized Mathematics

Logo of Annals of Formalized Mathematics

The act of formalizing a proof is not mechanical: it involves substantial mathematical insight in its own right, and it constitutes the essence of formalized mathematics, which is now recognized as a mathematical discipline on its own.

AFM editorial board

The Annals of Formalized Mathematics is the first journal in this topical field, and it is diamond open access ! Math OA is proud to support the initiative in the form of an overlay journal.

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Mark Wilson
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Official statement by founding editors of J. Algebraic Combinatorics

From Chris Godsil, Ian Goulden, David Jackson, received today:

We were the founding editors of Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics when it started in 1992. Recently we joined the editorial board of the journal Algebraic Combinatorics, and are no longer active with the Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics. We urge researchers in algebraic combinatorics to consider submitting their work to Algebraic Combinatorics, to help ensure its success.

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Mark Wilson

Comments on the flipping of J. Algebraic Combinatorics to the Fair Open Access model

The European Mathematical Society Newsletter September 2018 issue includes an article by Mark C. Wilson (MathOA) and most of the editors involved in the switch from JACo to AlCo. Some key quotes:

In terms of community support, almost everyone has been behind us – support has been particularly strong among younger mathematicians.

Another of our initial concerns (as far as I remember) was the amount of our time and effort we would have to put into the flip. As it turned out, this was not so bad (mainly thanks to MathOA support) so other editors considering flipping in the future should not be discouraged by this matter.

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Mark Wilson

MathOA receives funding from AO-OA

Academy-owned Open Access (AO-OA) is a project involving research libraries such as University of Pittsburgh, University of California, MIT and Ohio State. They have generously promised funding for 5 years for supporting flipping of journals via MathOA. Thanks very much to Kathleen Shearer for her central role in organizing this.

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Mark Wilson

Comparing Algebraic Combinatorics with its predecessor

 

Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics has been published by Springer since 1992. It was founded by Chris Godsil, Ian Goulden, and David Jackson.

In June 2017 the four editors-in-chief gave notice to Springer that they would resign at the end of the year. The entire editorial board (except for two members who decided to retire on the grounds of age) followed the EiCs to a new home. The new title is Algebraic Combinatorics, currently published by Centre Mersenne. Note that this journal is run according to the Fair Open Access Principles, so that any subsequent change of publisher will not require a change in the title of the journal. The switch was facilitated by MathOA.

Springer is attempting to continue the old title J. Algebraic Combinatorics with new editors.  Ilias Kotsireas has accepted the offer to be EiC, despite explicitly being asked not to by the former EiCs.

The entire editorial board of Algebraic Combinatorics, including the 4 current EiCs, consists of 43 people. JACo, on the other hand, has 15 including 4 Advisory Editors.  Using the American Mathematical Society’s invaluable (and paywalled) resource MathSciNet, we can look for at papers written by various editors, having either primary or secondary classification 05E (Algebraic Combinatorics). We find the following data for JACo.

  • EiC – Kotsireas 0
  • Advisory board (4 people) 1
  • Editors (10 people) 9

However for AlCo we find

  • EiCs (4 people) 69
  • Editorial board (4 people almost randomly selected from 39) 110

AlCo has published 12 papers since January 2018 and received 140 submissions since July 2017.  According to one of the EiCs, the quality of submissions has risen since the move from Springer (although some subfields have reduced in quantity, which he attributed to authors waiting until AlCo is fully indexed).

It is completely clear that Algebraic Combinatorics is the continuation of the original journal founded in 1992, and the journal currently called JACo is a “zombie”.

Clear statements by senior members of the algebraic combinatorics community about this disparity would faacilitate the transfer of reputation from JACo to AlCo and allow the former title to die a natural death. The founding editors should insist on their names being removed from the JACo site. They founded a journal, and it continues under a new name, with them as editorial board members. The old title is now simply a distraction.

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Mark Wilson

Changes to MathOA board

Victor Reiner has transferred from the Advisory Board to the main board. He was instrumental in the successful flipping of Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics, and has recently been elected as a member of the council of the American Mathematical Society.

Those people who are not members of either board, but have performed much service for MathOA, are now listed under About/Governance Structure.

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Mark Wilson

TIB joins supporters of Fair Open Access

The German National Library of Science and Technology has signed up to support Fair Open Access via FOAA.  Quoting from the press release:

Prof. Johan Rooryck, President of FOAA, was pleased to welcome the German National Library of Science and Technology on board: “TIB has agreed to support one of the journals of Mathematics in Open Access (MathOA) that are flipping to Fair Open Access. TIB is the first Supporting Participant to join us since we started FOAA in the summer of 2017, and we hope to welcome many more libraries and organisations in the future. We have set up a participant program for this purpose.”

May this be the first of many!

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Mark Wilson

MathOA is now on Twitter

We use the handle @oa_math.

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Mark Wilson

MathOA receives funding from Foundation Compositio Mathematica

We are pleased to announce that Foundation Compositio Mathematica is financially supporting the activities of MathOA. The Foundation already supports journals Algebraic Geometry and SIGMA which run along Fair Open Access lines. It also supports mathematics via subsidies for mathematical conferences, prizes for mathematical accomplishments and other initiatives.

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