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.
Plan S requirements
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.