Abstract
The announcement of Plan S in September 2018 triggered a wide-ranging debate over how best to accelerate the shift to open access. The Plan’s ten principles represent a call for the creation of an intellectual commons, to be brought into being through collective action by funders and managed through regulated market mechanisms. As it gathers both momentum and critics, the coalition must grapple with questions of equity, efficiency and sustainability. The work of Elinor Ostrom has shown that successful management of the commons frequently relies on polycentricity and adaptive governance. The Plan S principles must therefore function as an overarching framework within which local actors retain some autonomy, and should remain open to amendment as the scholarly communication landscape evolves.
Highlights
The announcement in September 2018 by a coalition of European research funders (‘cOAlition S’)[1] that they will require immediate open access (OA) to all their scientific publications from 1 January 2020 has triggered a wide-ranging debate over how best to accelerate the shift to OA
There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that open access offers economic and societal benefits,[13] yet it is notable that the Preamble to the Plan presents open access as ‘foundational’ to the scientific enterprise itself, rather than an obligation placed on science by society at large.[14]
The coalition’s decision to commission an independent study on publication costs and fees, and the circumspect language adopted in the Wellcome Trust’s new, Plan S-compliant, policy,[58] point to a growing recognition that a poorly devised ‘cure’ for market failure risks being worse than the disease
Summary
The announcement in September 2018 by a coalition of European research funders (‘cOAlition S’)[1] that they will require immediate open access (OA) to all their scientific publications from 1 January 2020 has triggered a wide-ranging debate over how best to accelerate the shift to OA.
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