A few months ago I wrote a post about Plan-S. This is the international plan for the long-term future of Open Access (OA) and academic publishing, which was announced in September. (Read my previous post about Plan-S).

The main message is the still same – nothing will happen in the immediate future and not within this REF period.  However, there have been a couple of developments in the last month which I thought I’d share. So if you’re interested, please read on ….

 

Increased international support

Plan-S is led by cOAlition S, who are a group of the major research funders from 13 European countries, including UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).  Over the last two months China has indicated that they back Plan-S. Given they they are a major research producer, this development is significant.  The US have also been reported to be positive about backing the plan.

 

Proposed implementation details released

cOAlition S have released a document that fleshes out how the plan could be implemented. If you’re interested, then this Science article has more details or the full document is available here.  It has actually slightly relaxed its stance on not publishing in subscription/hybrid journals in the future.  During a ‘transition period’ it suggests that this will be allowed providing the journal has publicly committed to becoming fully OA in the future and a copy of the article is also uploaded into an OA repository.  The  document also outlines further implementation guidelines.  But it’s important to bear in mind is that they are just suggestions at this stage and they are very much subject to change.  cOAlition S have invited feedback and the University will respond.