Is there a database of free-of-charge open access peer reviewed journals?

Question

I'm trying to get papers published but I live in a poor Eastern European country and don't have the means to pay for peer review. Or not for all of the reviews, to be more specific. Yet, I want them to be open access, so anyone could read them since I think this is the best way to disseminate information. I tried to look for a database of journals that are both free-of-charge and peer reviewed but it seems to me such a thing isn't noted in the search engines and one has to view it case by case. I want to ask is there any list of journals that are both free-of-charge and peer reviewed, e. g. indexed by the search engines and, of course, open acess?

Thank you for the information in advance.

Answer 1

Short answer

https://doaj.org/

• DOAJ only accepts open access journals.
• We define these as journals where the copyright holder of a scholarly work grants usage rights to others using an open license (Creative Commons or equivalent) allowing for immediate free access to the work and permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any otherlawful purpose.
• The journal must display an open access statement indicating that it fulfils the DOAJ definition of open access.
• The full text of all content must be available for free and open access without delay
  • No embargo period
  • Requiring users to register to read content is not accepted
  • A charge for the print version of a journal is permitted

Clarifications on your question

I believe you are mixing multiple things.

means to pay for peer review.

Peer review is always "free of charge", in the sense that authors do not pay for their work to be reviewed. Reviewers are (almost never) paid to review, and editors make money by selling access to the papers they publish.

open access, so anyone could read them since I think this is the best way to disseminate information.

On that, you are absolutely right, and it does matter indeed that anybody can access your research without "paywall".

Possibly relevant: what is peer review journal, are they paid by authors , why do academics write peer reviews?