An Interview with DOAJ's Joanna Ball | EBSCO Community

"I started in my role as Managing Director at DOAJ in January 2022, having spent my career until then in libraries. Supporting researchers has been a theme throughout my career, and of course in recent years, this has been synonymous with facilitating open research, ranging from developing Open Access policies and workflows to implementing research data management services. I also advocated for libraries to divert a proportion of their budgets away from purchasing and subscribing content to provide support for open infrastructures and initiatives, and set up funds for this purpose.  My role at DOAJ is a new one, and I’m responsible for strategic leadership of the organisation: setting our overall direction and ensuring that our resources are properly managed to enable us to meet our strategic objectives, as well as advocating for DOAJ and Open Access on a global level. The organisation has grown organically over the past nearly 20 years, and now has a core team of over 20, supported by a global network of over 100 volunteers either acting as ambassadors or reviewing journal applications. An important aspect of my role will be to ensure a sustainable future for DOAJ - we’re proud that over 80% of our funding comes from libraries and other public institutions - but we’re an ambitious organisation with an index which is constantly growing - so there’s more fundraising to do...."