Plan “S” an initiative for Open Access publishing

          

   Scientific publications results and discoveries are not optimally used by the scientific community due to publication paywalls (A paywall is a method of restricting access to content via a paid subscription.)¹ which restricts a substantial amount of research results reach to the researchers, they move forward on their new research based on the established results of previous researches.

With the decision of making scientific publications widely openly accessible and complete elimination of publication paywalls, European Union ministers of Science and Innovation as major public funders of research in Europe in 2016 assembled in Competitiveness Council, resolved that all European scientific publications should be immediately accessible by 2020. They developed “Plan S whereby research funders will mandate that access to research publications that are generated through research grants that they allocate, must be fully and immediately open and cannot be monetized in any way.”2

On 4 September 2018, cOAlition S, a consortium of a group of national research funding organizations of EU was announced to launch with the support of the European Commission and European Research Council (ERC) with the commitment of making full and immediate open access to research publications a reality, which is to be implemented by 1 January 2020. The cOAlition S is built keeping in mind one target and 10 principles of Plan S.

The main Principle of Plan S is “By 2020 scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants provided by participating national and European research councils and funding bodies, must be published in compliant Open Access Journals or on compliant Open Access Platforms."3

In Summary I

Plan S  is an initiative for open access publishing launched in 2018, with the aim of making full and immediate access to the research publications a reality by January 2020, It is supported by an international consortium "cOAlition S" currently comprises 13 national research funding organizations and four charitable foundations from 13 countries of European Union who have agreed to implement the 10 principles of Plan S in a coordinated way, together  with the support of European Commission and European Research Council (ERC).

References:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paywall
2. https://www.coalition-s.org/why-plan-s/
3. https://www.coalition-s.org/about/

To know more:

1. https://www.coalition-s.org/
2. https://www.scienceeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Plan_S.pdf
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S