The impact of Plan S on scholarly journals from less developed European countries

Abstract

In September 2018, Science Europe (https://www.scienceeurope.org/) launched the cOalition S initiative for increasing Open Access (OA) to research data and publications derived from publicly funded scientific research projects. The backbone of the initiative is Plan S with one main goal: With effect from 2021, scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo (1). Whichever of these three routes is taken, all publications must be published under an open license, preferably the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY), in order to fulfil the requirements defined by the Berlin Declaration. Many European research funders have been endorsing cOAlition S from the very beginning and supporting Plan S as one of the paths to science without publication paywalls. Its aims, principles, and scope are a step forward to open science. Despite this boost, it remains to be seen whether Plan S will have unexpected long-term effects on journals from small or peripheral scientific communities. Many researchers in these communities mainly publish in their domestic journals. Despite limited international reception, these journals can play an important role by increasing access to locally relevant information and helping domestic researchers to improve their publication performance. If the diamond OA publishing model of these journals loses stable national financial support, it would be an additional blow to small scientific communities.