The European Physical Society (EPS) has warned that a major open-access initiative in Europe could cause ‘irrecoverable damage’ if it is implemented too quickly. In a statement, the EPS says that while it welcomes the proposal – known as Plan S — as a ‘medium to long-term vision’, its proponents must get more support by engaging further with the scientific community.
Plan S is an ambitious attempt to make research papers open access immediately after they are published. It was unveiled in September 2018 by 11 national research funding organisations — dubbed cOAlition S – that include UK Research and Innovation and the French National Research Agency. The group says that all scientific publications resulting from research funded by public grants provided by ‘national and European research councils and funding bodies’ must be published in ‘compliant’ open-access journals or on open-access platforms from January 1, 2020.
If implemented, the agreement means that authors funded by these agencies would not be allowed to publish in so-called ‘hybrid’ journals, with funders being able to sanction researchers who are not compliant with the rules. Hybrid journals are publications that remain subscription based but give authors the choice to make their papers open access for a fee, known as an article-processing charge.
While the EPS states that it supports open science and that the physics community has often pioneered its implementation, it argues that several governing principles for Plan S are not ‘conducive’ to a transition to open access. Notably, the EPS says that a forced transition in such a short period of time could ‘undermine the economic viability of many journals’, which would cause ‘irrecoverable damage to established, well-functioning networks of editors and referees’. The society adds that publication in open-access repositories can only complement, not replace, publication in peer-reviewed outlets.
The EPS also warns that non-European authors may not have access to the same level of open-access funding as in Europe and that such a plan can ‘only succeed’ when it is coordinated globally. In addition, the EPS is concerned that Plan S limits researchers’ freedom to choose where to publish, which could be a problem as academic recruitment and career advancement are still based on publication metrics and journal prestige.
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