The Croatian scholarly publishing landscape has a long tradition of publicly supported and scholar-led open access publishing. More than 300 Croatian scholarly journals operate according to the Diamond Open Access (DOA) model, providing immediate open access without charging fees to authors or readers. This ecosystem has developed through the work of infrastructure providers, editors, researchers, libraries, and non-profit publishers (research performing organisations, higher education institutions, learned societies, and other types of organisations), creating a sustainable but largely decentralised publishing environment. The initiative for creating the European Diamond Capacity Hub (OPERAS / Coalition S, 2025) has raised awareness about the need to have a national DOA centre in Croatia.

This poster presents the establishment of the Croatian Centre for Diamond Open Access (CroDOA), a national initiative aimed at strengthening coordination, support, and long-term sustainability of DOA publishing in Croatia, not only for journals, but also for books and other types of publications. CroDOA was initiated through collaboration among members of the OPERAS-HR consortium and partner institutions (University of Zadar (OPERAS National Node for Croatia), the University of Zagreb University Computing Centre (SRCE), the University of Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Croatian Association for Scholarly Communication (ZNAK / CROASC), and the National and University Library in Zagreb (NSK)) involved in scholarly communication, publishing infrastructures, and open science development. In 2025, these institutions formalised their cooperation through a Memorandum of Understanding (National and University Library in Zagreb, 2025), strengthening the basis for a coordinated national approach to DOA support.

Rather than creating a new publishing platform or replacing existing initiatives, CroDOA is designed as a collaborative support and coordination network that connects existing infrastructures, services, and communities. The organisational model is based on distributed responsibilities and collaborative governance. Each participating partner contributes according to its expertise and existing activities, creating a networked structure rather than a centralised authority. The Centre aims to serve as both a national support and a national capacity hub and a point of connection with European networks, communities and initiatives. It aims to contribute Croatian expertise and practices to wider discussions on sustainable and equitable scholarly publishing, but also to implement the international standards and best practices into national communities.

An important planned activity of CroDOA is the development of a methodology for identifying and categorising DOA journals within the HRČAK portal (Jertec Musap and Celjak, 2025). Although many Croatian journals already operate according to DOA principles, there is currently no formalised national framework for their systematic recognition and classification. The Centre therefore plans to develop criteria and procedures for identifying DOA journals, taking into account international recommendations, while adapting them to the Croatian publishing environment. This process will include analysis of editorial and funding models, publishing workflows, ownership structures, and fee policies to create a transparent categorisation framework that will support development of national policy for sustainable DOA publishing, help to plan advocacy activities, and raise international visibility of journals.

Another important strand of activities of CroDOA is related to building capacities and enhancing existing infrastructures for Diamond book publishing with initially mapping the current funding models and existing infrastructures.

CroDOA will provide guidance, professional support, education, and training, primarily by organising workshops and webinars, to help researchers, journal editors, librarians and publishers implement best open science practices in their work.

Besides educational activities, guidance, and support, CroDOA will assist in the implementation of the Croatian Open Science Plan (MZOM, 2025) and promote the Diamond Open Access Standard (DIAMAS, 2024) by building a more equitable, transparent, and sustainable publishing landscape.

By presenting the structure and planned activities of CroDOA, the poster highlights how existing scholarly communities can transition from informal cooperation towards more strategic and coordinated support models. The initiative demonstrates how national collaboration can strengthen scholar-led publishing while preserving bibliodiversity, multilingual scholarship, and equitable access to scholarly communication.