The African Journals Initiative, run by ABC and Pluto Journals, has opened a call for additional humanities and social science journals to join the programme from 2026. For further details of how to apply, please see https://www.plutojournals.com/african-journals-initiative/. The deadline is 31 August 2025.
Six African published journals, including from Ethiopia, Somaliland, Nigeria, Malawi, Ghana and Tanzania, are already on JSTOR! See https://about.jstor.org/blog/opening-access-amplifying-voices-six-african-journals-now-on-jstor/
For further details, please write to stephanie@africanbookscollective.com
African Journals Initiative – New Journals Questionnaire
Thank you for expressing interest in this Diamond Open Access journal publishing initiative. To
begin this journey we need to know about your journal experience, its history in brief and the
editorial and publishing structure you have or plan to build to support your journal’s work.
Please provide in-text answers to the following questions in this word document and return to
Roger (rogervz@plutojournals.com) and Stephanie (stephanie@africanbookscollective.com)
1. Full title of the journal.
2. Who owns the journal?
3. Number of issues being planned to be published annually.
4. Does the Journal have an ISSN number? Will you supply, an ISSN number or do you wish PJ
provides it for you?
5. Will you provide DOIs for all articles?
6. Who registers the DOIs currently?
7. Where is the journal currently hosted? Do you use your own institutional server, a commercial platform or other hosting arrangement? Where is the version of record hosted?
8. Please detail the aims and scope of your journal, or provide link to a relevant section of journal website.
9. Please provide details of institutional sponsor/s and/or funders.
10. Can you tell us your experiences about publishing on time, all or most of the time?
11. Can you tell us the approximate number of articles/book reviews/essays you publish per issue, and approximate word count per issue? Will you have ambitions to change this volume?
12. How are submissions received and processed?
13. Website for the Journal: Please provide links to journal home page and other hosting/mirror sites.
14. Please outline your experience in Journal publishing?
15. What will make your journal stand out? What will be its unique characteristics?
16. Are there comparable journals in your field with which you directly compete?
17. Have you experience of indexing the Journal in DOAJ or other directories and indexes? Please provide details.
18. In which other databases, directories, or indexing services is your journal currently listed or do you plan to seek inclusion (e.g., Scopus, Web of Science, African Journals Online, Google Scholar)?
19. How do you fund the journal? Are editors paid? What other costs do you have? Do you receive institutional or donor funding? How sustainable is this funding model?
20. Have you experience of Journal publishing in Open Access? If so, please elaborate.
21. Under what licence do you publish your articles (e.g., Creative Commons CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, or other)? If you don’t currently use a specific licence, are you open to adopting a Creative Commons licence?
22. Do you have an Editorial Board and an Advisory Board or other Boards to assist you? On a separate sheet please let us have the names of all your Board members and their University association if any, and please detail their role and involvement.
If none, tell how long before you can prepare this key element of infrastructure.
23. Please provide details of your peer review system you plan to use?
24. Do you have plans to market and promote your journal?
25. Are you currently part of any other publishing initiatives or programmes to increase the profile and impact of your journal?
26. Have you experience of a digital submission system (e.g. OJS)? If so, please provide details.
27. Do you do your own copy-editing and typesetting?
28. Are you able to upload XML files of your journal?
29. Do you accept articles in languages other than English. If so, which? Do you have a preference for US/US English?
30. Are you familiar with the term Diamond Open Access? If not already diamond OA, what would be the advantages – and challenges – for your journal to adopt this model?
31. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about plans for your journal?
African Journals Initiative- Standard criteria for any journal that would like to be considered for inclusion.
Essential
1. They are a HSS journal that is published in English.They publish 2 or more issues a year, with a minimum of 5 research articles per Issue.
2. They have a track record of publishing for more than two years.
3. They have an established Editorial Board, Advisory Board members, Book Review Editors Associate Editors, or a combination of these categories. Ideally the Editorial Board would include members from several countries.
4. They have a peer review system.
5. They have a submissions procedure including for book reviews if these are published.
6. They have a system for typesetting.
7. Have a published Guidelines for Authors.
Desirable
1. An established ISSN number
2. A cover design
3. A website
We would expect a journal to share their production pipeline with us.