PLAN S

Summary

Plan S is an initiative that aims to accelerate the transition to a scholarly publishing system that is characterised by immediate, free online access to, and largely unrestricted use and re-use (full Open Access) of scholarly publications. Plan S is promoted by a consortium that brings together research funding agencies and entities.

Promoting organizations

Promoted by Science Europe through “cOAlition S”, a consortium supported by the European Research Council (ERC) and the main public funding agencies in Austria, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Slovenia, Poland, and Norway. Agencies from Italy, Sweden, Jordan, and Zambia also participate, as well as some private foundations such as Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and some international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and TDR (Training in Tropical Diseases).

Objectives

The first version of Plan S was made public in September 2018 and, after a period of public consultation, it was updated in May 2019 (“Making full and immediate Open Access a reality”), when some aspects of the Plan were modified.

Its main objective is to ensure that, with effect from 2021* all scholarly publications on the results of research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies are published in Open Access Journals or on Open Access platforms, or are made immediately available through Open Access repositories without embargo.

Plan S thus represents an important step in scholarly communication towards immediate and total Open Access. This immediate Open Access to all research and scientific articles will encourage more open collaboration among researchers and other independent academic staff from all disciplines, as well as analysts inside and outside the Academy.

The implementation of Plan S is expected to have a major impact not only on publishing practices but also on the way scientific research is conducted and assessed.

Plan S establishes 10 principles to achieve this goal:

Authors or their institutions retain copyright to their publications, which must be published under an open licence, preferably the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY).
Funders will develop robust criteria and requirements for the services that high-quality Open Access journals, Open Access Platforms and Open Access repositories must provide.
These agencies will also provide incentives to create, establish and support Open Access journals and platforms, and also provide infrastructures where necessary.
Publication fees will be covered by the funders or research institutions, not by individual researchers.
The funders support the diversity of business models for Open Access Journals and platforms. When Open Access fees are applied, they must be commensurate with the publication services delivered and the structure of such fees must be transparent.
The funders encourage governments, universities, research organisations, libraries, academics and learned societies to align their strategies and practices, notably to ensure transparency.
The above principles shall apply to all types of scholarly publications, but it is understood that the timeline to achieve Open Access for monographs and book chapters will be longer and requires a separate and due process.
The funders do not support the hybrid model of publishing. However, as a transitional pathway towards full Open Access within a clearly defined timeframe, and only as part of transformative arrangements, funders may contribute to financially supporting such arrangements.
The funders will monitor compliance and sanction non-compliant beneficiaries/grantees.
Funders commit that when assessing research outputs during funding decisions they will value the intrinsic merit of the work and not consider the publication channel, its impact factor (or other journal metrics) or the publisher.

*For funders agreeing after January 2020 to implement Plan S in their policies, the start date will be one year from that agreement.

Beneficiaries and stakeholders

Firstly, the scientific community, which will have access to previous research results and, secondly, society as a whole, which will benefit from the associated scientific advances.

Results

The “cOAlition S” has published a “Guidance on the implementation of Plan S”, where principles of Plan S are specified and possible routes for its implementation in scholarly publication are provided. Principles and guidance for monographies and book chapters are expected to be published by the end of 2021.

“cOAlition S” also provides a technical guide and recommendations on criteria for choosing journals or repositories for publishing. These criteria will be reviewed in 2024, and after that they will become mandatory.

“cOAlition S” has also developed a strategy that will help researchers supported by a cOAlition funder to keep their copyright. In this manner, they will be able to publish in the journal they choose, including subscription journals, while fully complying with Plan S.

In the Implementation roadmap on the Plan S website, there is some information related to each of the organisations that are part of “cOAlition S”:

The date their Plan S-aligned Open Access policy will take effect.
What their Plan S-aligned Open Access policy will apply to.
It also shows which funders are adopting the Rights Retention Strategy to support the implementation of their Plan S-aligned OA policy from 1/1/2021. These funders are designated as “early adopters”. Other funders, who plan to update their grant conditions at a later date, are categorised as “adoption to follow”.

In order to track the effects of Plan S on research and scholarly communication, “cOAlition S” has developed a monitoring framework through which funding agencies who are signatories to Plan S can track or monitor the most significant of these effects. The taskforce that developed this monitoring framework comprises representatives of both cOAlition S funders and early career researcher groups. This framework is thought to cover a wide range of effects, such as those related to equality, diversity, inclusion, collaboration in research and research careers, as well as costs.

Also worth highlighting is the launch in November 2020 of the Journal Checker Tool, a search engine that can be used to verify Plan S compliance. This tool is already working at https://journalcheckertool.org/

Challenges

Many possible impacts of Plan S were communicated in the 600-plus responses received as part of the consultation process for the Plan S Implementation Guidance. Various challenges have been identified that need to be monitored and addressed, from disciplinary differences in publication cultures to global inequalities in access and funding for publication fees. There is also concern that compliance with Plan S principles may negatively affect the career paths of Early Career Researchers (ECRs).

To analyse and deal with the potential negative impacts of Plan S, the “cOAlition S” has focused some of its efforts on monitoring and tracking the various effects of its implementation.

Evidence of success

Despite its European origins, Plan S has a global scope and brings together some prominent international funders of regional, national, and international research.

It is an incipient initiative that will start to be implemented by some of the coalition partners in January 2021.