'Plan S' and 'cOAlition S': joining forces to accelerate the transition to Open Access

On 4 September, Commissioner Moedas – who is in charge of Research, Science and Innovation – announced the launch of 'Plan S' and 'cOAlition S'. With this initiative, a coalition of national research funders from France, Great Britain, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovenia and the Netherlands, supported by the Commission, have committed to accelerating the transition to open access.

The initiative was developed under the auspices of Science Europe which is an association of European Research Funding Organisations and Research Performing Organisations. The Commission’s special Open Access envoy, Robert-Jan Smits, and the European Research Council (ERC) Scientific Council also contributed to making this initiative happen.

With this joint initiative,

• Publishers are experiencing international pressure to change their business model and make cross-border Open Access possible.
• All publications sponsored by the participating research funding bodies will be published in Open Access as of 1 January 2020. This is in line with Horizon 2020, where open access to publications is already one of the requirements.

More information about the initiative can be found here.