The report summarises statistics on open access and presents the expenditures for scholarly publishing. It also outlines ongoing efforts to coordinate national work in the field as well as the initiatives being undertaken to promote open access.

Developments in open access in Sweden

In 2025, 81 per cent of peer-reviewed scholarly articles were published with immediate open access. This means that over the past three years, the proportion of open access articles has remained largely unchanged. The majority of these articles were published in hybrid journals, which account for around 55 per cent of immediate open access publishing. Hybrid journals publish both subscription-based articles that require payment or institutional access and open access articles that are freely available to all readers.

As part of the report, developments in open access to scholarly books, such as monographs and edited volumes, are also presented. KB began expanding its reporting in this area in 2025, when the annual report highlighted open access to scholarly books.

In connection with the publication of the report, open access in numbers has been updated on KB’s website. KB has also recently published data on the costs of scholarly publishing at Swedish universities and higher education institutions for 2025.

Diamond open access – towards a new publishing landscape

Diamond open access is a publishing model in which neither authors nor readers pay fees. Instead, publishing is funded through other means, such as research funders, universities, library consortia, or other public and non-profit organisations. The aim of diamond open access is to provide a non-commercial publishing alternative that is owned or governed by the research community, contributing to a fairer and more equitable scholarly publishing system.

Interest in diamond open access has grown as the transition to open access in Sweden has levelled off, while publishing costs have not decreased as expected. The diamond model is increasingly seen as a way forward, both to address rising costs and to strengthen the research community’s control over how research findings are communicated.

For diamond open access to grow in Sweden, several structural conditions need to be in place. Sustainable funding models are required, as is enhanced support for publishing platforms and related infrastructure and recognition of their role as research infrastructures.

The editorial work carried out by researchers also needs to be acknowledged when academic merits are assessed.

Pilot project with Formas and Forte

This year, KB launched a pilot project together with the research funders Formas and Forte, with the aim of enabling more Swedish scholarly journals to adopt the diamond open access model. The project also seeks to develop generalisable processes for transitioning to diamond open access. The ambition is for these experiences to be shared widely and to benefit others, including through guidelines and examples of best practices.

“We are particularly pleased about our collaboration with Formas and Forte. Through this project, we hope to contribute to tangible progress in the field that many others will be able to benefit from,” says National Librarian Karin Grönvall.

The report also highlights global and national inequalities in access to and opportunities for open publishing. These include planned measures within the European Research Area and issues relating to copyright.