cOAlition S has announced the release of an independent study evaluating the impact of Plan S on the academic publishing landscape, five years after its launch. Conducted by scidecode science consulting, the study, titled “Galvanising the Open Access Community: A Study on the Impact of Plan S”, offers an in-depth assessment of the policy’s influence on the push for full and immediate Open Access (OA).
The report combines quantitative data with qualitative insights from stakeholders across the academic publishing ecosystem, offering the first comprehensive analysis of Plan S’s effects.
The study highlights several key outcomes of Plan S:
• Increased Open Access: Plan S has played a crucial role in advancing full and immediate Open Access, bringing the topic to the forefront of policymakers’ agendas and encouraging publishers to negotiate with academic institutions.
• Rights Retention Strategy: The study underscores the potentially transformative impact of the rights retention strategy, which has led institutions to develop their own Rights Retention Policies.
• Diamond Open Access Momentum: cOAlition S has contributed to the growing support for Diamond Open Access, a model where neither authors nor readers bear publishing costs.
• Critique of Article-Based Charges: The report highlights cOAlition S’s role in raising awareness about the inequities in article processing charges (APCs) and traditional publishing models.
While the study notes significant progress, it emphasizes that it may be too early for a complete quantitative assessment, as many Plan S policies were only implemented from 2021 onwards. The authors recommend revisiting the study in 5-10 years to gain a clearer understanding of its long-term effects.
The report recommends extending cOAlition S beyond 2025, recognizing the crucial role it plays in shaping the Open Access movement. It also stresses that the shift towards sustainable, affordable, and equitable academic publishing will require continued collaboration among researchers, institutions, publishers, and funders.
The full report and underlying dataset are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13738479.
Click here to read the original press release.
