In September 2018 an open access initiative (Plan S) was launched by an international consortium of research funders (Coalition S), including UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Plan S requires that, from 2020, “scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms”.
In addition, Plan S contains 10 key principles, including:
- Authors retain copyright of their publication with no restrictions. All publications must be published under an open licence, preferably the Creative Commons Attribution Licence CC BY.
- Where applicable, Open Access publication fees are covered by the Funders or universities, not by individual researchers; it is acknowledged that all scientists should be able to publish their work Open Access even if their institutions have limited means;
- In case such high quality Open Access journals or platforms do not yet exist, the Funders will, in a coordinated way, provide incentives to establish and support them when appropriate; support will also be provided for Open Access infrastructures where necessary;
The Open Access Team would welcome feedback or comment on Plan S and its implementation.
Please could all feedback be emailed to openaccess@qub.ac.uk by Wednesday 6th February.
The Library will be submitting its response to Plan S on Friday 8th February.