The Future of Collective Funding Models for Open Access

Thursday May 14, 2026

From 11:30am to 12:30pm

Open Access / Open Scholarship

The growing momentum behind the Diamond open access model, and the open infrastructure that makes it possible, has led to the emergence of collective funding models to support them. Collective funding sources financial support for community- and scholar-led open initiatives through monetizing memberships or other intangible benefits based on shared values, as opposed to transactional models where funds are exchanged for specific services. Some of these models now have a decade or more behind them, while others are just starting out. Their relative success has varied, as both they and libraries have had to adapt to changing material conditions, including plateauing or declining budgets and the transformation of commercial offerings to support open access. This panel will bring together several voices to discuss collective funding models, from individuals with direct experience running these types of programs to support OA books, journals, and infrastructure--not to exaggerate their potential but to intentionally reflect on the opportunities and threats facing these models in the coming years, and how they might intersect with library priorities around open access and open scholarship. They will each attempt to answer this pressing question: is collective funding capable of unlocking the type of transformation that is necessary to increase research communication and equitable participation in a knowledge environment dominated by commercial interests?