In 2025, Pluto Journals and African Books Collective (ABC) launched the African Journals Initiative (AJI) working with a growing community of no-fee (‘diamond’) Open Access (OA) social science and humanities journals based in African universities, supported by ScienceOpen and JSTOR.

This three year pilot project supports the publishing and distribution of a small number of African academic journals. It offers a range of services designed to enhance visibility and discoverability, including indexing, user-friendly submission systems, annual detailed impact reports, and much more.

Journal selection is overseen by an advisory board made up of African academics including Prof. Frederick Ato Armah, director of Research and Programmes at the Association of African Universities; Prof. Akosua K. Darkwah, who teaches sociology at the University of Ghana; Elizabeth Le Roux, a professor in the Department of Information Science at the University of Pretoria, where she coordinates the Publishing Studies programme; Prof. Abebe Zegeye, vice president of Wollo University, Ethiopia; and Mike Schramm,  former biologist, university lecturer, and published researcher with experience at both AJOL and NISC in South Africa.

In its first year, the initiative onboarded the following journals: Dhaxalreeb (Somaliland);  Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies, coordinated at the University of Dar es Salaam; Ibadan Journal of Sociology from Nigeria; Legon Journal of the Humanities from the University of Ghana’s College of Humanities; and Journal of Humanities, hosted by the University of Malawi.

In 2025, user engagement reached 7,690 articles accessed on ScienceOpen and 24,042 archive materials on JSTOR, reflecting growing global interest in African scholarship.

The second year of the initiative includes additional journals such as

  • Bakwethu: A Journal of Shakespeare Studies (South Africa), an international, biannual, peer-reviewed open-access journal exploring Shakespeare from global perspectives, particularly African and Global South contexts.
  • Ghana Journal of Sociology and Anthropology (Ghana), is an international, biannual, peer-reviewed diamond open-access journal providing space for sociologists and anthropologists to share conceptual and theoretical ideas grounded in African contexts.
  • Botswana Notes & Records (Botswana), is an international, biannual, peer-reviewed diamond open-access journal publishing rigorous scholarship on Botswana’s history, contemporary affairs, languages, folklore, archaeology, biological and natural sciences, and traditional culture.
  • African Journal of Bioethics (Kenya), is a quarterly, peer-reviewed open-access journal advancing scholarship in bioethics across Africa.
  • People Centred – The Journal of Development Administration (Zimbabwe), publishes papers that have implications for African development and focus on people centred approaches to development.

The African Books Collective is looking to partner with more journals published from the African continent for 2027 and applications are open here.

If you are a librarian, you can pledge your support for the African Journals Initiative through a variety of channels, including your consortia membership, EBSCO, or by working directly with us. If your institution is affiliated with the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), you are also welcome to contact Melanie Kowalski at CRL regarding their attractive, consortium-negotiated pledge pricing.

To find out more, please visit our support page or write to Brett, [email protected].

ABOUT

Pluto Journals is an international, Diamond Open Access, scholarly publisher in the social sciences, it is owned by the not-for-profit Pluto Educational Trust. It plays a unique and valuable role serving the establishment of new fields of critical scholarship. It has proven itself to be part of a global re-orientation of learning that represents scholarship committed to investigating pressing questions of post-colonialism, anti-racist efforts, and social justice.

African Books Collective, now 35 years old, is an African owned, worldwide marketing and distribution outlet for books from Africa  – scholarly, literature and children’s books.

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