Business Models Contributing to Financial Sustainability and International Visibility of Open Access Scientific Journals

Scientific journals are a fundamental pillar for the validation, communication and advancement of science. The advent of the Internet brought about a transformative transition from printed, subscription-based models to digital publishing. This innovation gave rise to the emergence of Open Access (OA), a paradigm that seeks to eliminate economic, legal, and technical barriers so that research results are accessible to any reader in the world. However, this model shifts the costs of the editorial process, which are now borne by authors through article processing charges (APCs) or subsidized by publishing institutions. This fundamental change in the business model of scholarly communication warrants an in-depth analysis of its implications at global and regional levels. Globally, the adoption of Open Access has grown steadily, exceeding 50% of scientific production in 2023. However, its implementation has been uneven. While regions such as Western Europe have shown a rapid transition towards Aid for Trade models, Latin America has pioneered a different approach. Thanks to the early creation of platforms such as Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) in 1997, the region consolidated a mostly non-commercial OA model financed by public institutions. This model, known as the "diamond way", made Latin America a world leader in the proportion of open access publications for almost two decades, demonstrating the viability of an alternative to APC-based systems. Despite Latin America's historical leadership and success in adopting its Open Access model, significant gaps persist in understanding its long-term effects. Existing reviews and studies have focused mainly on measuring adoption rates and describing the characteristics of regional platforms, but have not systematically assessed the consequences of this specific model. We do not know for sure how the subsidized OA model impacts the financial sustainability of journals, their editorial quality in the face of international standards, or their visibility and citation outside the region. The current literature lacks a comprehensive analysis of whether this approach, although equitable in access, is sustainable and competitive in the global scientific ecosystem (Alperin & Rozemblum, 2017; Gómez et al., 2019; Packer et al., 2014). Therefore, the objective of this systematic review is to evaluate the current evidence on the efficacy and implications of the predominant Open Access model in Latin America, in order to analyze its effects on the financial sustainability, editorial quality, and international visibility of scientific journals in the region.