Open-access publisher PLOS pushes to extend clout beyond biomedicine

"Non-profit life-sciences publisher PLOS is gunning for a bigger share of science beyond the biomedical realm with the launch of five journals in fields where open science is less widely adopted. They will be its first new titles in 14 years. It is also piloting a new open-access business model, in a bid to spread the cost of publishing more equally among researchers....

The new business model is the first shake-up at the publisher for a while, and has been eagerly anticipated....

 The publisher’s financial history is chequered. It first broke even in 2010. In recent years it has fallen into deficit, with 2019 the first year that it made an operating surplus since 2015....

The idea behind the new model is that the cost of publishing a paper is spread more equally across all of the authors’ institutions, rather than the corresponding author’s institution or funder footing the bill, as is standard with an article processing charge. PLOS says that as more members join the scheme, it will become cheaper for researchers to publish papers. So far, more than 75 institutions in 8 countries have signed up....

PLOS’s chief publishing officer, Niamh O’Connor, says that PLOS hopes to circumvent the idea that open access moves the cost of publishing a paper from the reader to the author. “While the article-processing model has allowed open access to develop, we don’t see that as the future,” she says. “We are working to a future where those barriers are removed.” ..."