Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/WikiJournal 2026-2027

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Applicant information

Organization name or Wikimedia Username for individuals. (required): WikiJournal

Do you have any approved General Support Fund requests? (required): Yes, I have already applied and received a General Support Fund

You are applying as a(n). (required): Wikimedia Affiliate (chapter, thematic org., or user group)

Are your group or organization legally registered in your country? (required): Yes

Do you have a fiscal sponsor?: No

Fiscal organization name.: N/A

Please provide links to the following documents if they are available

These documentation can be provided in your local language(s), no translations required.

Organizational website
Detailed financial reporting and/or audits
Documentation of the governance structure, board list, governance processes
Documentation of the general assembly decision on your plan

Administrative board: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Administrative_board

Editorial boards: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Editors

Main proposal

1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be a title for the Meta-Wiki page. (required): WikiJournal 2026-2027

2. Do you want to apply for the multi-year base funding for 3 years? (required) (only for returning applicants): No

2.1. Provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan? (required)

N/A

3. Proposed start date. (required): 2026-07-01

4. Proposed end date. (required): 2027-06-30

5. Does your organization or group have an Affiliate or Organizational Annual Plan that can help us understand your proposal? If yes, please provide it. (required): Yes; https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Simple/Applications/WikiJournal_User_Group/2026/annual_plan

6. Does your affiliate, organization or group have a Strategic Plan that can help us understand your proposal? If yes, please provide it. (required): No

7. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required): International (more than one country across continents or regions); Based mainly in United States and Sweden for administrative purposes, but the project includes board members and editors from multiple countries, including all continents except Antarctica.

8. What are your programs, approaches, and strategies? What are the challenges that you are trying to address and how will your strategies support you in addressing these challenges? (required)

Summary WikiJournal is both a collection of open-access, peer-reviewed academic journals and also an initiative that bridges the gap between academia and Wikimedia, making high-quality scholarly knowledge freely accessible to everyone. We’re a dedicated group of volunteers and staff working to create a reliable and inclusive academic publishing space. With this funding, we aim to strengthen our operations, improve our platform, expand outreach, and refine our peer review processes. Ultimately, we want WikiJournal to be a trusted source of open-access scholarship that benefits both academic and Wikimedia communities.

Background and Context: WikiJournal connects rigorous academic publishing with the accessibility of Wikimedia projects like Wikipedia and Wikiversity. Expert-reviewed knowledge shouldn’t be locked behind paywalls—it should be freely available to a global audience. Within academia, scholars receive little credit for contributing to Wikimedia projects; traditionally they receive credit only for publishing in scholarly journals. Because the Wikijournals are proper scholarly journals that are oriented toward improving Wikimedia projects, they provide a unique incentive for academics to contribute, via a process that’s familiar to them. We have created three journals so far: the WikiJournal of Medicine, WikiJournal of Science, and WikiJournal of Humanities. Our volunteer-driven editorial teams—comprising scholars, researchers, and professionals—are committed to maintaining academic integrity while ensuring knowledge reaches the widest possible audience. Our published articles range from original research to scholarly reviews, some of which are integrated directly into or from Wikipedia, raising the standard of freely available academic content.

PROGRAMS AND APPROACHES Strengthening Operational Capacity There has been a bottleneck in processing articles, including coordinating the peer review process. Many of of these processes are quite repetitive, and also require some onboarding, and have therefore been difficult to drive on volunteer basis. In the past, it has been very helpful to contract technical editors to perform the repetitive tasks. However, the project has not felt comfortable contracting any assistance without proper insurance coverage, and such coverage has not been affordable while the project has been administratively located in the United States. Therefore, the WikiJournal community has formed a consensus to administratively move to Sweden, where it has been previously centered in the past. This will allow the project to contract technical editors again to assist with article processing. Furthermore, a paid executive officer or chair is needed to oversee the recruitment and onboarding of technical editors. The registration process has been quite slow, but is ongoing, with last update in Feb 2026 that an the task has been assigned to an administrator at the Swedish registration ministry.

Expanding Outreach and Contributor Engagement

The projects open and free-to-publish nature by itself attracts participation from diverse academic communities, including scholars from underrepresented backgrounds, to broaden our contributor base. If time allows, there will be focus on active outreach to additional potential contributors from diverse backgrounds.
If time allows, the projects also aims to build stronger partnerships with universities, research institutions, and open-access advocates.
Members have regularly attended academic conferences and Wikimedia events. Once operational capacity in improved as per above, the goal is to set up direct engagement with researchers and students.
Further actions that the WikiJournal community is planning on doing for outreach to diverse groups include prioritizing article submissions from underrepresented geographic areas, increasing translation of article abstracts into other languages, and encouraging editors in underserved areas to attend local conferences and other activities.

Enhancing Technical Infrastructure

Our platform needs improvements to make it easier for contributors to submit and review articles while maintaining compatibility with Wikipedia's standards, and is another goal once operational capacity is increased.

Sustainability and Growth Planning

Long-term stability—we are looking to secure diverse funding sources beyond grants to ensure our project keeps thriving.
We’re exploring ways to expand our volunteer base while ensuring contributors feel supported and valued.

CHALLENGES AND HOW WE ARE TACKLING THEM Keeping Things Running Efficiently

Challenge: Managing a global team of volunteers, all with other full-time commitments, while keeping editorial and review processes on track can be difficult
Strategy: We’re working on finding better tools (better tracking of submission status, and reminders when an activity is overdue), clearer editorial guidelines, buddy systems, and more efficient workflows to make the process easier for everyone involved.

Addressing Administration difficulties

Challenge: The project has seen difficulties in filling administrative roles. Bottlenecks remain in article processing, with long processing times as a result. Internally, we face volunteer burnout, governance complexities, and the need for scalable operations. Externally, we’re navigating competition with traditional academic journals, ensuring credibility in academia, and keeping up with Wikipedia's evolving policies.
Strategy: Once the project has become more established in its administrational location in Sweden, there will be outreach to consulting services for expertise in navigating these complexities, and offer additional advice for both internal and external challenges.

Ensuring Long-Term Funding Viability

Challenge: Relying solely on grants is not optimal —we need a long-term plan.
Strategy: We are implementing a purposeful downsizing, maintaining only the essential paid services to continue functioning as a publisher, while also leaving the potential to gradually grow in the future. We’re trying to diversify our funding sources, explore potential partnerships (see section 12), and grow our volunteer network to ensure WikiJournal’s future.

Impact and Benefits

A major goal is more expert peer-reviewed content on Wikipedia – By integrating our articles into Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, we’re making rigorously reviewed scholarship accessible to millions.
Bridging academia and Wikimedia – We’re fostering trust between scholars and Wikimedia, showing that open-access publishing can be both rigorous and widely accessible, something that scholars have been reluctant to do in the past. This attracts more scholars to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.
Making Wikipedia more reliable – Our peer-reviewed articles provide high-quality material that improve Wikipedia’s credibility, including reviews, meta-analyses and media content.
Diversity in academic publishing – We offer an inclusive, free platform that supports researchers from all backgrounds, especially those traditionally underrepresented in academia.

9. What categories are your main programs and related activities under? Please select all that apply. (required)


Category	Yes/No
Education	Yes
Culture, heritage or GLAM	No
Gender and diversity	Yes
Community support and engagement	Yes
Participation in campaigns and contests	No
Public policy advocacy	No
Technology (software development)	Yes
Other	No

Education

9.1.1. Select all your programs and activities for Education. (required): Translation, Research, Wikidata programs, Wikimedia Commons programs; Other programs and activities if any: N/A
9.1.2. Select all relevant audience groups for Education. (required): Teachers or professors; Other groups if any: N/A

Gender and diversity

9.3. Select all your programs and activities for Gender and diversity.: Bringing in women and/or gender diverse participants and editors, Focusing on creating content about women and/or gender diverse groups, including biographies, intersectional topic areas and/or adding images, Focusing on creating content about marginalized (underrepresented) communities and their knowledge; Other programs and activities if any: N/A

Community support and engagement

9.4. Select all your programs and activities for Community support and engagement.: On-wiki training of community members, Off-wiki training of community members, Supporting community members' participation in events and conferences; Other programs and activities if any: N/A

Technology (software development)

T1. Describe the technical project(s) or provide relevant links. (required) Include the following information

Project goals, impact, and product strategy
Technical approach, integrations, and dependencies
Milestones, progress tracking and success metrics
Demand and community consultations

Goal: To streamline, simplify and accelerate the processing of articles submitted to the various WikiJournals.

Impact: Improved article processing will help decrease the currently long article processing times, and also serve as an open-source model for others who want to process articles in an open-access way.

Product Strategy The main strategy is to perform backend work which is centered on supporting the full academic publishing lifecycle for WikiJournals by linking Wikimedia pages with an external journal management system (OJS). The goal is to make submission, peer review, revision, and publication seamless and visible, with metadata stored centrally (e.g., in Wikidata) to improve discoverability and integrity.

Technical Approach, Integrations, and Dependencies The approach is built around integrations between MediaWiki (wikimedia pages), OJS (Open Journal Systems), and Wikidata. Key ideas include linking draft pages to OJS records, synchronizing contributor and status metadata, and automating submission/review actions where possible. Dependencies include the OJS API, MediaWiki/Wikidata APIs, and optional document conversion tools.

Milestones, Progress Tracking and Success Metrics Progress is tracked through workflow states and metadata synchronization: where an article sits in the process (submitted, under review, revised, accepted/published), reflected in OJS, Wikidata, and on wiki pages. Success is implicitly defined as reduced manual effort, clear status visibility, and complete metadata flow across platforms.

Demand and Community Consultations The development needs reflect user stories gathered from editors, authors, and reviewers, highlighting their pain points (e.g., manual metadata entry, difficulty tracking reviews). These stories guide backend requirements and stretch goals (like unified login and format conversion).

Main page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiJournal/Back_end_development

T2. Describe the project team, maintenance, and risk management. (required) Include the following information

Security and privacy considerations and expertise
Mitigation of security or privacy risks
Long-term maintenance, code documentation and licensing
Team description with expertise, roles, contribution (hours & compensation)

Security and Privacy Considerations & Expertise WikiJournal operates within Wikimedia’s established security and privacy framework, in addition to its own standards for security and privacy as per its Ethics Statement (https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Ethics_statement). It balances open scholarly transparency with the need for confidentiality in peer review (e.g., reviewer anonymity where appropriate).

Mitigation of Security or Privacy Risks Risks are mitigated through role-based permissions and community governance. Confidential review processes are handled through restricted access workflows while maintaining public transparency for published content.

Long-Term Maintenance, Code Documentation & Licensing The platform relies on MediaWiki’s long-term open-source maintenance ecosystem. Documentation follows Wikimedia’s community standards. Content is published under free licenses (e.g., CC BY-SA), and any backend code would follow open-source licensing norms consistent with Wikimedia projects.

Team Description: Expertise, Roles, Contributions WikiJournal is managed by the administrative board, with individual journals being governed by their editorial boards. Article submission and processing is driven by editors, authors, and peer reviewers. Technical development depends on Wikimedia volunteers and contributors with MediaWiki, API, and Wikidata expertise. Governance and publication workflows are community-driven. https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Administrative_board https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Editors

T3. Approximately, how much of the requested budget will you dedicate to technical projects (local currency)? (required): 1000 USD
10. Please include a link to or upload a timeline (operational calendar) for your programs and activities. (required): June 2026: Expected registration in Sweden. Start of recruiting an executive officer, preferably from within the project.

July/August 2026: With help of executive officer if available, recruitment and onboarding of technical editors to assist with repetitive tasks in article processing. Sep 2026 to Jan 2027: Focus on decreased article processing times. Jan 2027 to June 2027: Enhancing Technical Infrastructure

Continuous throughout the year: Outreach and partnerships, with focus on outreach to additional potential contributors from diverse backgrounds. (see section 8).

11. Describe your team. (required)

Team Overview The overall project is governed by the administrative board. The journals are governed by editorial boards, with assistance from associate editors. All scholarly and governance roles are currently volunteer-based and unpaid. The project plans on contracting an executive officer to help recruit and onboard technical editors.

Technical roles Once the project has finished administrative registration (see section 8) the plan is to contract technical editors to help out with article processing.

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Administrative_board https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Editors

12. Will you be working with any internal (Wikimedia) or external partners? Describe the characteristics of these partnerships and bring a few examples of the most significant partnerships. (required)

- By nature, WIkiJournal is integrated with Wikimedia Foundation projects. Images and material from published reviews that contain proper reliable sources may be integrated into other projects including Wikipedia.

Many editorial board members are university-affiliated.
If time allows, the projects also aims to build stronger partnerships with universities, research institutions, and open-access advocates.

13. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select all that apply. (required): Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement, Improve User Experience, Provide for Safety and Inclusion, Ensure Equity in Decision-making, Coordinate Across Stakeholders, Invest in Skills and Leadership Development, Manage Internal Knowledge, Innovate in Free Knowledge

Metrics

Wikimedia Metrics

14. Please select and fill out Wikimedia Metrics for your proposal. (recommended)

14.1. Number of participants, editors, and organizers.

All metrics provided are optional, please fill them out if they are aligned with your programs and activities.

Participants, editors, and organizers
Metrics name	Target	Description
Number of all participants	60	Administrative board members + editorial board members + associate editors. In addition to this number, there are multiple authors and peer reviewers.
Number of all editors	55	Editorial board members + associate editors
Number of new editors	5
Number of retained editors	5
Number of all organizers	10	Administrative board members, which have been constant since last year.
Number of new organizers	0

14.2. Number of new content contributions to Wikimedia projects. (recommended)

Contributions to Wikimedia projects
Wikimedia project	Created	Edited or improved
Wikipedia	2	20
Wikimedia Commons	20	20
Wikidata	20	20
Wiktionary
Wikisource
Wikimedia Incubator
Translatewiki
MediaWiki
Wikiquote
Wikivoyage
Wikibooks
Wikiversity
Wikinews
Wikispecies
Wikifunctions / Abstract Wikipedia

Description for Wikimedia projects contributions metrics. (optional)

Other Metrics

15. Do you have other quantitative and qualitative targets for your project (other metrics)? (required): No


Other Metrics	Description	Target
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A

Budget

16. Will you have any other revenue sources when implementing this proposal (e.g. other funding, membership contributions, donations)? (required): No

16.1. List other revenue sources. (required)

N/A

16.2. Approximately how much revenue will you have from other sources in your local currency? (required): N/A

17. Your local currency. (required): USD

18. What is the total requested amount in your local currency? (required): 14989 USD

Multi-year funding request summary
Year	Amount (local currency)
Year 1	N/A USD
Year 2	N/A USD
Year 3	N/A USD

19. Does this proposal include compensation for staff or contractors? (required): Yes

19.1. How many paid staff members do you plan to have? (required)

Include the number of staff and contractors during the proposal period. If you have short-term contractors or staff, please include them separately and mention their terms.

1 executive officer

6 technical editors

19.2. How many FTEs (full-time equivalents) in total? (required)

Include the total FTE of staff and contractors during the proposal period. If you have short-term contractors or staff, please include their FTEs with the terms separately.

Approximately 500, considering a salary of $25 per hour.

19.3. Describe any staff or contractor changes compared to the current year / ongoing General Support Fund if any. (required only for returning grantees): The project is looking to contract an executive officer (preferably from within the project) to help out mainly in recruiting and onboarding technical editors.

Technical editors will follow a similar system of work of distributed tasks between them similarly to what has been practiced in the past. Since WikiJournal has operated without technical editors for an extended period due to organizational restructuring (reduced budget and registration in Sweden), there will likely be new people assigned to the roles, with new onboarding and training.

20. Please provide an overview of your overall budget categories in your local currency. The budget breakdown should include only the amount requested with this General Support Fund (required).


Budget category	Amount in local currency
Staff and contractor costs	14000 USD
Operational costs	989 USD
Programmatic costs	14989 USD

21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Programs/Wikimedia_Community_Fund/General_Support_Fund/WikiJournal_2026-2027/Budget

Additional information

22. In this optional space you can add any other additional information about your proposal or organization that you think can help us when reviewing your proposal. (optional)

We are expecting unused funds from the previous grant period due to long processing time to attain registration in Sweden before we are able to contract an executive officer or technical editors.

By submitting your proposal/funding request you confirm that you have read and agree to the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy, and the Universal Code of Conduct.

Yes

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