London, 27 November 2018-Guidance on how Plan S is to be implemented was presented by cOAlition S yesterday in London. The guidance serves to clarify the Plan S provisions and describes implementation modalities. It also provides responses to questions and comments arising from online discussions and debates on Plan S.

Plan S aims for a system of scholarly publications that is more transparent, efficient and fair. It also aims to foster a culture that ensures all scholars, and in particular early career researchers, have the opportunity to excel and advance their careers.

“There are three main roads for Plan S compliance and we look forward to taking our many informal discussions with researchers, research institutions and publishers into a public commitment to implementation”, explains Prof. John-Arne Røttingen, Chief Executive of the Research Council of Norway (RCN) and co-chair of the cOAlition S implementation task force. The main roads are: 

• Publication in Open Access Journals or Platforms; 

• Deposit of Versions of Record (VoR) or Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) in Open Access repositories without embargo;

• Publication in ‘hybrid’ journals only under transformative agreements;

The guidance presented today provides information and technical requirements on the three avenues to Plan S compliance and gives indication of the policies that the cOALition S funders intend to put in place by January 2020.  cOAlition S welcomes feedback on the implementation guidance, in particular to identify specific areas of the Plan’s implementation that require further clarification.  “We want to ensure the guidance is clear and helpful for the different communities and stakeholders. These proposals offer opportunities for global pursuit of full and immediate Open Access, whatever the publishing model, and also provide a commitment to support publishing from countries where incomes are low” added David Sweeney, Executive Chair of Research England (UKRI) and co-chair of the cOAlition S task force. 

Feedback can be provided until the 1 February 2019 at 17h00 CET via the cOAlition S website: www.coalitions.org/feedback  

Plan S is an initiative for Open Access publishing that was launched in September 2018. The plan is supported by cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funders. Plan S requires that, from 2020, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms.

General information on the project: https://www.coalition-s.org/ 

Guidance on the Implementation of Plan S and public feedback form: https://www.coalitions.org/feedback