I’m a bit late passing this news on, but a few weeks ago arXiv announced that from 1st July 2026 it will be establishing itself as an “independent nonprofit organization”. It has been hosted for many years by Cornell University. You can read here about the reasons for this and how it will work, and there is a lengthier article in Science magazine, but the quick summary is
This transition allows for faster technological development, greater organizational flexibility, expanded partnerships, and long-term financial sustainability. A platform built by scientists for scientists, the new arXiv will continue to serve researchers worldwide with the same dedication to free and open scientific discovery.
Such a move creates opportunities, but also carries risks. The sustainability of the new-look arXiv will depend on finding appropriate sources of income, for example. I wish arXiv well in this move. There’s an advertisement for the post of Chief Executive, if anyone fancies the job!
One possible future model for the Open Journal of Astrophysics is as a standalone non-profit organization of some sort, funded also by donations. Currently we are funded by the Library at Maynooth University, where I am based. Having made the decision not to charge fees of any kind, we lack any source of income other than the University. I am very grateful for that support, but we are run on a very tight budget. We keep costs to an absolute minimum, but are not free.
I have written before about what I think the future of Diamond Open Access could look like. I would like to see a range of Diamond Open Access journals offering a choice for authors and serving different sub-disciplines. Most universities nowadays have publishing operations so there could be network of federated journals, some based on arXiv and some based on other repositories and others with different models, such as SciPost. Perhaps institutions are worried about the expense but, as we have shown the actual cost, is far less than they are wasting on Article Processing Charges.
Everything is working well right now at OJAp, but it is not reasonable that the expense of running a journal that serves the global astrophysics community should fall entirely on one small University in Ireland. It won’t be sustainable in the long run, either, if we continue to grow at the present rate. Compare us with the Diamond Open Access publisher SCIPOST, which has a long list of sponsors covering its costs; we have none. My only hope at the moment of turning OJAp into an independent organization is to win the lottery!
Another thing makes me nervous. Many modern universities, which are nominally non-profit institutions, are managed by people who care far more about revenue generation than about academic scholarship and research. I worry that someone upstairs might pressurize us to introduce charges to generate income by threatening to close us down.
I know that money is very tight in astrophysics these days but if you have access to any potential sources of funding – then please consider supporting OJAp!
In the Dark 