If you work in academia you’re probably at least vaguely aware of cOAlition S, the consortium of major research funders such as UKRI, Wellcome Trust, the WHO, and the Gates Foundation, formed with the goal of accelerating the transition to full Open Access for all research outputs. In 2018 they made waves by releasing Plan S, an agreement that these funders would require their authors to make all outputs open access immediately on publication, either by publishing open access, or by depositing their work in their institutional repository with no embargoes (hint: see our Rights Retention Policy for the easiest way to take this second option).
While Plan S has succeeded in increasing the amount of research being published open access, cOAlition S believes it has failed to address some serious issues in the dissemination of knowledge, and they have begun consultation on a new initiative. We want to summarise the basic issues in this new plan, and let you know how to get involved in the consultation process.
The Challenge: as cOAlition S sees it, the current model of scholarly publishing perpetuates global inequities and hampers early career researchers from making meaningful contributions to their field. By shifting from a traditional publishing model where readers have to pay to access journals to one where people can read for free, but authors have to pay to be published, we’ve increased access by readers, but made it so that authors from wealthier countries and institutions, studying more well-funded topics, can afford to publish wherever they like, and authors from the global south or other marginalised contexts can’t. This doesn’t just harm those authors, it also perpetuates stereotypes about what sort of person can be a big smart scientist and harms scientific progress as a whole. Of course there are talented researchers in poor countries and unremarkable institutions, and it harms global knowledge if we never hear from them.
cOAlition S is also concerned with waste in the system. When peer reviewers spend hours or days evaluating a paper, and then the work they have done is hidden in the editorial files of a journal, only accessible to a handful of people, all the insights from that review are lost. If the article is rejected and then sent to another journal, another reviewer just needlessly duplicates that work. The strain of peer review on academics is causing delays in publication that slow down progress and lead to burnout.
The Proposal: The exact shape of the publishing world that cOAlition S is trying to bring about is a bit vague. The proposal sets out guiding principles rather than concrete actions, because their most important principle is that publishing in the future should be scholar-led. They propose 5 basic principles: scholars should be able to choose where they publish, all outputs should be shared ‘immediately and openly’, preprints should always be posted, peer review reports should be posted with the output, all types of outputs should be used for evaluating a researcher for career progression and funding opportunities, and that stakeholders like funders and institutions have to commit to supporting these new models so that researchers don’t have to bear all the risk of trying something new. They have a handy table suggesting how stakeholders can do this:
Overall, it’s more of a vision statement than a roadmap at this stage. By getting involved in the consultation, you can shape how the road map will look.
Unanswered Questions: Most obviously, it’s not yet clear how exactly this would all work. Perhaps the most significant question for researchers is how shifting to a new publication model would impact their workload and ability to share their research. The last thing most working academics need is more admin, and in some ways this proposal seems like a lot of work. However, dealing with publishers and securing funds for APCs can also be a lot of admin. The other main question may be how well all of this can work for the arts and humanities. cOAlition S emphasises that when they talk about research and science, they want to speak to all disciplines, but realistically they seem to be addressing issues largely in scientific publishing and the bulk of their collective funding power goes towards the sciences. How well they’ve kept humanities in mind when developing this proposal is an open question.
Moving Forward: There’s a lot in this proposal that is exciting for the future of scholarly publishing. We love to see more power in the hands of scholars themselves, and welcome any moves towards a more open and fair research world. There’s a lot of potential to shift things for the better in significant ways, and the ideas of an influential group like cOAlition S are worth paying attention to even if you don’t agree with them. If you’re a researcher and you have thoughts and want to know more. I’ve linked the sources for this article below. You can then feedback your thoughts through Their online survey (See sidebar)
Liverpool, Layal. ‘Open-access reformers launch next bold publishing plan: The group behind Plan S has already accelerated the open-access movement. Now it is proposing a more radical revolution for science publishing.’ Nature, News Feature, 31 October 2023. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03342-6
Plan S. Towards Responsible Publishing: a proposal from cOAlition S. 31 October, 2023. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8398480 accessed via https://www.coalition-s.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Towards_Responsible_Publishing_web.pdf
