Big European funders flesh out plan towards immediate free access to journals | Science|Business

"The architects of Plan S, a contentious plan to tear down scholarly journals’ paywalls in Europe, have laid out more details on how the initiative will work.

In a seven-page implementation guidance note published on Tuesday, funders backing the plan, including the European Research Council, national agencies in France, the Netherlands and the UK, as well as private funders including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, explain how grantees can abide by Plan S rules by 2020, when it goes into effect.

The note says that, aside from publishing in an open access journal or platform, researchers can comply with Plan S by publishing in a subscription journal provided they also make a peer reviewed version immediately available in a repository. Many top journals do not allow this until at least six months after publication....

Grantees will be permitted to publish in so-called hybrid journals, which charge a subscription but make some articles free to view, but only if the journal has committed to transform into a fully open access model...."