Plan S was initiated by e.g. the EU, The Research Council of Norway (NFR) and other European research funders, together forming cOAlition S. The plan requires immediate Open Access to all research the coalition is funding. Plan S applies to calls from 1 January 2021.
In September 2021 the coalition launched a set of recommendations for OA publishing of scholarly books.
Plan S requirements: Journal articles
As a result of the implementation of Plan S, the following changes concerning Open Access apply:
- All articles should be made openly accessible immediately upon publication, including those published in subscription-based journals
- The peer-reviewed version (Author's Accepted Manuscript, AAM) of all articles may be made openly accessible (self-archived) through an open repository (e.g. Nord Open)
- You as a researcher retain copyright to your articles instead of transferring this right to the publisher
- Articles must be published with an open (Creative Commons) licence facilitating free re-use of publications: CC BY as a standard, alternatively CC BY-SA or CC0, or CC BY-ND as an exception
- CC BY 4.0 is the preferred licence of Plan S. The licence entails that everyone is free to re-use (e.g. share and adapt) the article, while requiring attribution to the author
- CC BY-SA (Share Alike) is one of two alternative Plan S-compliant licences. The license is equivalent to CC BY, except that any adaptations must be provided with the same license and be shared on the same terms as the original publication
- CC0 (Universal) is the second of two alternative Plan S-compliant licences. The licence entails that the publication is public domain, i.e. that it is not subject to any copyright restrictions
- CC BY-ND (No Derivatives) is Plan S-compliant in exceptional cases. This entails that the publication may be shared, but not adapted, and this licence may be used if special reasons apply (solely on academic grounds). This may be an option if you as a researcher need to limit the possibilities to adapt a published text.
Plan S recommendations: Books
cOAlition S acknowledges that book publishing is important for scholars - particularly within the Humanities and Social Sciences. Accordingly, they have the following recommendations for Open Access publishing of scholarly books:
- All scholarly books based on original research funded by cOAlition S organisations should be made OA on publication.
- Authors or their institutions should retain sufficient intellectual property rights (IPR) to make books OA and to allow for re-use.
- Books should be published OA under a Creative Commons licence.
- Any embargo periods should be as short as possible and not more than 12 months.
cOAlition S funders should use their funding schemes to support books and separately fund OA publishing business models
How do l comply with Plan S?
You may ensure compliance with Plan S by publishing in one of the following four ways:
- Gold/pure OA journals
Publish your article in a Gold/pure OA journal. These are journals where all the articles are immediately openly accessible. They often charge OA fees, and these may be covered either through your research project funds or - if you do not possess funding for this - by filing an application to Nord's OA Fund
- Transformative OA publishing agreements
Publish via one of Nord's OA publishing agreements to get any OA fees covered or to get a discount on the fee (for discount agreements, you may apply to the OA Fund - see Gold/pure OA journals)
- Self-archiving in open repositories
If you are unable to publish in a Gold OA journal or via one of Nord's OA agreements, you may still achieve OA by self-archiving the accepted manuscript versjon (AAM version) of your publication in Nord's open repository, Nord Open Research Archive. According to cOAlition S' rights retention strategy, a CC BY licence must be applied to the AAM version and the AAM must be made available immediately (at the time of publication).
- Open Research Europe (ORE)
Publish your article for free on the EU's new (2021), electronic OA publishing platform, Open Research Europe. The platform publishes preprints (after thorough checks), offers transparent and open peer review, and ensures indexing in databases of articles that have passed peer review