Monitoring the effects of Plan S on Research and Scholarly Communication

Plan S aims for a change in scholarly communication, to full and immediate open access. The benefits of such a change are widely accepted. There is, however, legitimate discussion about the potential effects, positive and negative, of implementing Plan S, both among and beyond the funders supporting it.

Since the revised guidelines were released in May 2019, cOAlition S has been considering its next steps toward the review of the effects of Plan S, as signalled in those guidelines.

cOAlition S has established a taskforce to design a framework by which funders can monitor the most significant of these effects. That taskforce includes representatives of both cOAlition S funders and the research community, in particular early career researchers. The framework will cover a broad range of effects, such as those on equality, diversity and inclusion, on research collaboration and research careers, and on costs.

Our plan is to develop the framework in early 2020, and then put it to a wide consultation, to ensure that it is informed by a broad range of perspectives and expertise. We will provide further information about this as soon as possible.