By Luke Kirwan, IIASA Repository and Open Access Manager
IIASA Repository and Open Access Manager Luke Kirwan explains the ins-and-outs of the Plan S policy towards full and immediate Open Access publishing.
With Plan S, which has been implemented from 1 January 2021, new Open Access requirements come into force for project participants, which are intended to accelerate the transformation to complete and immediate Open Access. This has implications for researchers obtaining funding from funders supporting Plan S, such as the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) or Formas (a Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development).
What exactly is Plan S?
Plan S is an initiative that aims to promote making research immediately open access without embargo periods or restrictions. It requires that, from 2021, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms. A number of national and international research bodies, including the FWF and the European Research Council (ERC), are working jointly on the implementation of Plan S and the promotion of open access research publication. A list of these funding bodies can be found here and more detailed information on the implementation of Plan S is available here.
What you need to know
Starting from 1 January 2021, publications derived from research funded by Plan S research organizations must be made openly accessible immediately upon publication without any embargo period. This applies only to projects submitted after 1 January 2021. Furthermore, this material must be made available under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY). In some instances, a more restrictive license can be applied, but this must be discussed with the funding body.
Further guidelines are currently being developed for publications that are not journal articles such as books and edited volumes. From 2021 onwards, it is important to closely check the requirements of research funders to ensure that projects are compliant with any open access requirements they may have.
Papers published under Plan S funding has to include an appropriate acknowledgement. In the case of FWF funded research, it must for example follow the following format:
‘This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [Grant number]. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright license to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.’
Authors of papers published under Plan S funding will retain the copyright of their work, and will be providing journals with a license to publish their material rather than fully transferring copyright to them. Publishers that require a license to publish must allow the authors to make either the published version, or the accepted version, immediately available under an open license. No embargo period is permitted.
Routes to compliance
- Publish in an open access journal
- Make the accepted manuscript immediately available in an open access repository (like PURE) under a CC-BY license
- Publish in a subscription journal where IIASA has an open access agreement (For a list of IIASA’s current agreements please see here)
COAlition S has provided a journal checker tool so that you can check a journals compliance with the Plan S requirements.
The FWF’s statement and guidelines for Plan S can be found here. The operation and success of Plan S will be reviewed by the end of 2024. For any further information or assistance, please contact the library.
Related links:
Science family of journals announces change to open-access policy (Jan 2021)
Nature journals reveal terms of landmark open-access option (NOV 2020)
Plan S toolkit (coalition S website)
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
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