DOAJ
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) is a Denmark-based non-profit foundation that curates a free, community-vetted global index of 23,169 peer-reviewed open access journals and 13+ million article records, serving researchers, publishers, libraries, and funders worldwide.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2003
- HeadquartersVedbæk, Denmark
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What DOAJ does
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) is a community-driven, non-profit foundation (DOAJ Fonden) registered in Denmark, founded in 2003 to serve as the definitive global index of peer-reviewed open access journals. The organization curates a free-to-use directory of 23,169 journals and 13.2 million article records across 141 countries and 92 languages, of which 14,373 journals operate with no author fees. Publishers apply for indexing and are vetted against transparent quality and best-practice criteria by a distributed team of managing editors, editors, associate editors, and volunteers; accepted journals receive visibility, credibility, and reference by funder mandates such as Plan S. The platform is operated by a small core team of 11-50 staff augmented by a global Ambassador Programme spanning China, India, MENA, Southern Africa, Latin America, and Korea.
DOAJ's technology stack is built around open standards and open data: a public REST API, OAI-PMH metadata harvesting, OpenURL resolver, embeddable widgets, downloadable Journal CSV, full public data dumps, and historical datasets hosted on Zenodo with DOIs. All journal-level and article-level metadata is released under CC0, while website content is published under CC BY-SA 4.0 and the open source codebase is on GitHub under Apache 2.0. Supporting features include the DOAJ Seal for journals meeting best practices, the JASPER preservation service, and product integrations with Zenodo, Zotero, and the Open Climate Campaign tagging initiative.
The business model is overwhelmingly donation-funded: 73% of support comes from academic organisations and libraries and 27% from publishers and other contributors, with no requirement to donate in order to be indexed. A Premium Mode metadata service for publishers and institutions constitutes a paid tier, but specific pricing is not publicly disclosed. Revenue figures are not published. The customer base is horizontal: end users (researchers, students, general public) consume the directory free of charge; publishers seek indexing for visibility and credibility; libraries and aggregators integrate DOAJ via API and OAI-PMH; funders and policymakers reference DOAJ for open access compliance. The organization is committed to the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI) and remains independent, with no parent company or acquisition history.
DOAJ firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- DOAJ
- Legal name
- DOAJ Fonden
- Website
- https://doaj.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2003
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) is a Denmark-based non-profit foundation that curates a free, community-vetted global index of 23,169 peer-reviewed open access journals and 13+ million article records, serving researchers, publishers, libraries, and funders worldwide.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
DOAJ industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Scholarly Publishing Infrastructure
- NAICS
- Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services (5192)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- OER Repositories, Discovery & Metadata Services (EDAGAJAL)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Content Syndication, Distribution & Rights Management Platforms (BPAMAJAN), OER Licensing, Rights & Open Policy Support (Creative Commons) (EDAGAJAO)
Keywords
Where DOAJ is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Vedbæk
- HQ country
- Denmark
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
DOAJ business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Donations and Supporter Contributions: DOAJ is independent and operates entirely on donations. Support comes from academic organisations (73%) and other contributors/publishers (27%). Publishers do not need to donate to be listed in DOAJ.
- Premium Mode Metadata Services: DOAJ offers a Premium Mode service providing enhanced metadata services for publishers and institutions, likely as a paid tier.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Others | Free access to directory |
| Subscription | Others | Premium Mode |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels8 records
DOAJ product offering
Product offeringCore offering
DOAJ operates a free, community-driven online directory that curates and indexes peer-reviewed open access journals and their article records from around the world. It provides a public search interface, a REST API, OAI-PMH feeds, CSV data dumps, widgets, and OpenURL resolver for library integration. DOAJ also offers a paid Premium Mode tier that delivers enhanced metadata services for publishers and institutions. All core journal and article metadata is made openly available under a CC0 public domain waiver.
Product overview
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) is a community-driven, not-for-profit index of peer-reviewed open access journals. The core offering consists of the DOAJ Journal & Article Search platform combined with the DOAJ API, providing access to over 23,169 journals and 13+ million article records across 141 countries and 92 languages. Data products include Journal CSV downloads, Public Data Dumps, OAI-PMH feeds, and OpenURL resolver services for library system integration. DOAJ Premium provides enhanced metadata services for institutional supporters. Supporting services include the Ambassador Programme for regional outreach, DOAJ Blog for community engagement, Journal Application Services for indexing new journals, and Preservation Services through the JASPER project. The DOAJ Seal is awarded to journals meeting best practices standards.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- DOAJ Journal & Article Search
Quantifiable outcome
- 23,169 peer-reviewed open access journals indexed from 141 countries in 92 languages
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use DOAJ
Customer profileNamed customers4 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
DOAJ technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration5 records
Feature5 records
DOAJ partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
17 partnerships are on record, tiered core, supporting and flagship.
- ZenodocoreDOAJ shares all historical CSV data files from 2003 to 2025 on Zenodo, a general-purpose research repository operated by CERN. Each dataset receives a DOI, enabling citation and traceability. This aligns with DOAJ's commitment to POSI (Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure) and promotes transparency and open data practices.
- ZoterosupportingDOAJ maintains a Zotero group library cataloguing research that uses DOAJ data, helping the community discover existing studies and track how the DOAJ database is being used for scholarly communication research.
- Creative CommonsflagshipCreative Commons, SPARC, and EIFL partnered on the Open Climate Campaign (2022–2024), funded by Arcadia Fund. DOAJ now sustains the Campaign's legacy by automatically tagging open climate articles in its index, creating a subject collection of over 7,000 articles. Creative Commons continues to facilitate opening climate research via its Open Science programme.
- SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)flagshipSPARC partnered with Creative Commons and EIFL on the Open Climate Campaign to advocate for open sharing of climate science research. DOAJ is sustaining the tagging legacy of this campaign.
- EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries)flagshipEIFL partnered on the Open Climate Campaign. EIFL's Open Access Programme Manager Iryna Kuchma has spoken publicly about the importance of open climate research and DOAJ's role in surfacing it.
- DIAMAS (DIAmond Open Access Publishing in European Universities)coreDOAJ collaborates with DIAMAS, a project supporting the development of institutional publishing, to promote Diamond Open Access. DOAJ's focus on Diamond OA and journal visibility was showcased at the 3rd Global Summit on Diamond Open Access in Bengaluru.
- ALMASIsupportingDOAJ collaborates with ALMASI (an EU-funded project) to advance open access publishing practices and support community-led journals.
- Open Journals CollectivesupportingDOAJ collaborates with the Open Journals Collective to promote equitable and sustainable scholarly publishing, supporting Diamond open access journals globally.
- INASP (International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications)supportingINASP has supported journals (such as Colombo Business Journal) through the Journals Online project, helping with visibility and credibility. DOAJ is recognised by INASP-supported journals as an important index for quality validation.
- SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online)supportingSciELO SA (hosted by the Academy of Science of South Africa) is a key player in open access publishing in Africa. SciELO Brazil is the original SciELO project. DOAJ works alongside SciELO in the open access ecosystem, and SciELO sponsorship has previously supported DOAJ's Latin America work.
- AJOL (African Journals Online)supportingAJOL assists African journals in transitioning from print to online, working alongside DOAJ to improve visibility and quality of African open access journals.
- COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories)supportingCOAR is a global alliance of repository communities. DOAJ is referenced within the COAR ecosystem, and DOAJ ambassadors (including Vrushali Dandawate) have participated in COAR events such as the COAR Open Access Asia meeting with UNESCO.
- Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)supportingASSAf conducted the African Open Science Platform landscape study with CODATA direction. ASSAf's Open Access work and SciELO SA hosting are closely aligned with DOAJ's mission in Africa. 196 African journals are listed in DOAJ.
- SPARC AfricasupportingSPARC Africa is a SPARC chapter focused on capacitating Africans in academic and research sectors for free access to scientific knowledge. DOAJ participates in the broader open access advocacy ecosystem alongside SPARC Africa.
- IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations)supportingIFLA is actively involved in supporting the dissemination of climate research and promoting open access. IFLA Policy and Advocacy Manager Claire McGuire has highlighted DOAJ's open climate tagging initiative as beneficial for making climate research impactful.
- IS4OA (Infrastructure for Open Access)coreIS4OA is the original responsible entity for DOAJ. DOAJ Fonden is now the registered legal entity. The DOAJ website was previously run by IS4OA and DOAJ has transitioned to DOAJ Fonden as stated in the December 2025 Terms update. The Accessibility statement is run by DOAJ on behalf of DOAJ Fonden.
- OA Journals ToolkitsupportingDOAJ is a founding partner of the OA Journals Toolkit, an online resource providing answers to frequently asked questions about open access journal publishing.
Scale indicators7 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
DOAJ competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Sherpa Romeo: Sherpa Romeo provides an open database of publisher open-access policies and journal-level self-archiving permissions, serving the same researcher and library discovery audiences as DOAJ with complementary, journal-level policy metadata.
- OpenAlex: OpenAlex is an open, fully downloadable index of scholarly works, authors, venues and institutions — the closest open-data peer to DOAJ, serving overlapping audiences of researchers, librarians and tool-builders via comparable APIs and bulk-data access.
Broad incumbents
- Scopus: Scopus (Elsevier) is the dominant commercial abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed journals, used by the same research and institutional library audiences as DOAJ, with overlapping journal-coverage goals but a paid, analytics-heavy model.
- OpenAIRE: OpenAIRE operates the EU-funded open scholarly infrastructure for monitoring open access and research outputs across Europe, with overlapping metadata aggregation, harvesting (OAI-PMH) and policy-compliance goals to DOAJ.
- ISSN International Centre: The ISSN International Centre assigns and maintains ISSNs for serial publications and provides a global directory of serials, serving as foundational identification infrastructure that DOAJ relies on for journal-level metadata.
- Web of Science: Web of Science (Clarivate) is a long-established, subscription-based multidisciplinary index of peer-reviewed journals and citation data, serving the same research-evaluation and library-discovery audiences as DOAJ but with curated commercial workflows.
Emerging players
- Lens.org: Lens.org is an open scholarly metadata platform combining patents and scholarly works, with overlapping free, API-accessible journal and article metadata and an emphasis on open data analogous to DOAJ.
- Semantic Scholar: Semantic Scholar (Allen Institute) is an AI-driven scholarly search and discovery engine covering peer-reviewed journals, with overlapping user base of researchers and a growing free metadata/graph offering that competes for the discovery layer DOAJ supports.
Regional players
- SciELO: SciELO is a regional open-access journal indexing and publishing platform primarily serving Latin America (and increasingly Africa), with overlapping journal vetting, metadata and discovery workflows and an explicit partnership history with DOAJ.
- African Journals Online (AJOL): AJOL hosts and indexes African peer-reviewed scholarly journals and supports their transition to online and open access, with overlapping mission and partnership history with DOAJ in the African open-access ecosystem.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
DOAJ social profiles
Digital presenceDOAJ compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance4 records
DOAJ financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
DOAJ leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles5 records
DOAJ funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
DOAJ M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about DOAJ
What does DOAJ do?
DOAJ operates a free, community-driven online directory that curates and indexes peer-reviewed open access journals and their article records from around the world. It provides a public search interface, a REST API, OAI-PMH feeds, CSV data dumps, widgets, and OpenURL resolver for library integration. DOAJ also offers a paid Premium Mode tier that delivers enhanced metadata services for publishers and institutions. All core journal and article metadata is made openly available under a CC0 public domain waiver.
Is DOAJ a public or private company?
DOAJ is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was DOAJ founded?
DOAJ was founded in 2003. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is DOAJ based?
DOAJ is headquartered in Vedbæk, Denmark, in the Europe region.
How does DOAJ make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Donations and Supporter Contributions are the primary driver. The others are premium Mode Metadata Services.
Who are DOAJ's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Sherpa Romeo and OpenAlex. Broad incumbents are Scopus, OpenAIRE, ISSN International Centre and Web of Science. Emerging players are Lens.org and Semantic Scholar. Regional players are SciELO and African Journals Online (AJOL).
Does DOAJ have an API?
Yes. DOAJ provides a public API for accessing journal and article metadata. The API enables programmatic retrieval of journal-level metadata (available under CC0 waiver), article-level metadata, search functionality, and journal CSV data. Available via API endpoints including OAI-PMH feed, XML format, and OpenURL resolver for library integration. Developer documentation is at doaj.org/docs/api.
What industry is DOAJ in?
DOAJ's product category is Scholarly Publishing Infrastructure. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EDAGAJAL, OER Repositories, Discovery & Metadata Services, with a secondary code of BPAMAJAN, Content Syndication, Distribution & Rights Management Platforms. Its NAICS code is 5192 and its SIC code is 7370.