PLOS has published a new report, Redefining Publishing: Practical Pathways to Open Science, which sets out a roadmap for how scholarly publishing can evolve beyond article‑centered and APC‑driven models. The report highlights structural pressures across the research ecosystem and proposes practical pathways to support open science.
The findings are based on an 18‑month research and design project involving researchers, funders, institutional leaders, librarians, and infrastructure providers worldwide. The project was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The report argues that journal articles remain important but no longer capture the full range of research outputs, such as data, code, methods, and workflows. It notes that APC‑based publishing models reinforce article‑centered incentives, create barriers to participation, and are misaligned with the broader goals of open science. An independent economic analysis commissioned by PLOS found that open science delivers the greatest value when outputs are designed for reuse at scale, supported by infrastructure, standards, and incentives.
To address these challenges, the report introduces the concept of a “knowledge stack,” a publishing model that connects articles and preprints with associated outputs to create a structured, machine‑readable record of the research process. The approach emphasizes interoperability, building on existing repositories, metadata standards, persistent identifiers, and open protocols.
The report stresses that visibility alone is insufficient. Adoption of non‑article outputs requires trust, usability, and recognition, including clearer attribution, improved metadata, contextual information, and signals of quality. It also highlights the growing importance of structured, transparent, and machine‑readable infrastructure as AI systems increasingly rely on scientific literature.
Alison Muddit, CEO of PLOS, noted that no single organization can redefine research structures but emphasized that each stakeholder has a role in moving the system forward. The report also underscores the need for regional collaboration and locally grounded solutions to avoid reinforcing global inequalities.
Next steps for PLOS include practical experimentation through pilots, infrastructure collaboration, open‑source development, and testing of new publishing capabilities. Initial implementation will focus on data and code, with new approaches to attribution, contextual linking, and verification.
The report concludes that scholarly publishing is at a critical inflection point, and meaningful progress toward open science will depend on aligning infrastructure, incentives, funding models, and research assessment practices through coordinated reform.
Click here to read the original press release.
