Open consultation to gather input on Plan S implementation

The group of European research funders known as cOAlition S is launching an open consultation to seek feedback and comments from the scientific community on the implementation of Plan S, the initiative for open access publishing.

A draft implementation guidance prepared by the coalition was released on Tuesday 27 November. The guidance will be open for feedback until 1 February 2019.

The guidance serves to clarify the Plan S provisions and describes implementation methods. It also provides responses to questions and comments arising from online discussions and debates on Plan S.

Academy of Finland to organise discussions on implementation of Plan S

The Academy of Finland encourages a broad range of stakeholders to actively participate in both the open consultation and the Academy’s public debates about the Plan S implementation. The Academy believes that the implementation of Plan S requires continuous and in-depth interaction between the members of the scientific community.

The first discussion will be held at Finlandia Hall on Monday 10 December 2018 at 14.00–16.00. A second discussion will be held at the Academy of Finland on Friday 11 January 2019 at 12.00–14.00.

Registration for both events is open at Academyevents. The registration code for the first discussion is avointiede2018, and the registration deadline is 5 December. The registration code for the second discussion is avointiede2019, and the registration deadline is 8 January.

Several actors involved in preparing the implementation guidance

The implementation guidance for the Plan S principles has been prepared by a task force headed by John-Arne Røttingen, Research Council of Norway, and David Sweeney, UK Research and Innovation, together with leading experts and researchers from participating funders. It also drew on significant input from interested parties such as research institutions, researchers, universities, funders, charities, publishers and civil society.

Plan S is an initiative for open access publishing that was launched in September 2018. Its aim is to speed up the transition to full and immediate open access, making publicly funded research results in Europe freely available. The group known as cOAlition S, which promotes the Plan S initiative, comprises 15 national research funders including the Academy of Finland.

The Plan S principles aim to address the fact that no science should be locked behind paywalls that withhold a substantial amount of research results from a large fraction of the scientific community, and from society as a whole. The Academy of Finland is committed to this objective. Plan S aims to have a broad impact, but the open access measures will be decided by individual research funding agencies.