Science Magazine 4 JANUARY 2019 • VOL 363 ISSUE 6422 1 1S C I E N C E sciencemag.org IL L U S T R A T IO N : D A V ID E B O N A Z Z I/ S A L Z M A N A R T By Tania Rabesandratana H ow far will Plan S spread? Since the September 2018 launch of the Europe-backed program to mandate immediate open access (OA) to scientific literature, 16 funders in 13 countries have signed on. That’s still far shy of Plan S’s ambition: to con- vince the world’s major research funders to require immediate OA to all published papers stemming from their grants. Whether it will reach that goal depends in part on details that remain to be set- tled, including a cap on the au- thor charges that funders will pay for OA publication (Science, 30 November 2018, p. 983). But the plan has gained momen- tum: In December 2018, China stunned many by expressing strong support for Plan S (Science, 14 December 2018, p. 1218). This month, a national funding agency in Africa is expected to join, possibly followed by a second U.S. funder. Others around the world are considering whether to sign on. Plan S, scheduled to take effect on 1 Janu- ary 2020, has drawn support from many scientists, who welcome a shake-up of a pub- lishing system that can generate large prof- its while keeping taxpayer-funded research results behind paywalls. But publishers (in- cluding AAAS, which publishes Science) are concerned, and some scientists worry that Plan S could restrict their choices. If Plan S fails to grow, it could remain a divisive mandate that applies to only a small percentage of the world’s scientific papers. (Delta Think, a consulting company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, estimates that the first 15 funders to back Plan S ac- counted for 3.5% of the global research ar- ticles in 2017.) To transform publishing, the plan needs global buy-in. The more funders join, the more articles will be published in OA journals that comply with its require- ments, pushing publishers to flip their jour- nals from paywall-protected subscriptions to OA, says librarian Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, the chief digital scholarship officer at the University of California, Berkeley. Robert-Jan Smits, the European Com- mission’s OA envoy in Brussels, who is one of the architects of Plan S, says publishers have stalled by emphasizing the need for broad participation. “The big publishers told me: ‘Listen, we can only flip our jour- nals [to OA] if this is signed by everyone. So first go on a trip around the world and come back in 20 years. Then we can talk again,’” Smits recalls. “Some people try to do anything to keep the status quo.” OA mandates are nothing new: In Europe, 74 research funders require that papers be made free at some point, up from 12 in 2005, according to the Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Poli- cies. But existing policies typically allow a delay of 6 or 12 months after initial publica- tion, during which papers can remain be- hind a publisher paywall. Plan S requires immediate OA; it also in- sists that authors retain copyright and that hybrid journals, which charge subscrip- I N D E P T H “[Plan S] is perhaps our best chance to transform the publishing industry soon.” Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, University of California, Berkeley PUBLISHING The world debates open-access mandates Spurred by European funders behind Plan S, many countries consider similar moves Published by AAAS o n A p ril 5 , 2 0 2 1 h ttp ://scie n ce .scie n ce m a g .o rg / D o w n lo a d e d fro m http://science.sciencemag.org/ NEWS | I N D E P T H 1 2 4 JANUARY 2019 • VOL 363 ISSUE 6422 sciencemag.org S C I E N C E C R E D IT S : (G R A P H IC ) N . D E S A I/ S C IE N C E ; (D A T A ) N A T IO N A L S C IE N C E B O A R D , S C IE N C E & E N G IN E E R IN G I N D IC A T O R S 2 0 1 8 tions but also offer a paid OA option, sign “transformative agreements” to switch to fully OA. Some European funders think Plan S goes too far. “We and many German [or- ganizations] think that we should not be as prescriptive as Plan S is,” says Wilhelm Krull, secretary general of the Volkswagen Foundation, a private research funder in Hannover , Germany. The country is Eu- rope’s top producer of scientific papers, ahead of the United Kingdom and France, whose main funding agencies have signed on to Plan S. Germany’s biggest federal funding agency, DFG, said it supports Plan S’s goals but prefers to let research- ers drive the change. Other funders, including the Esto- nian Research Council, say the timeline is too tight, and they will reconsider joining when Plan S’s impact is clearer. Other European funders are weighing pros and cons. Spain’s science ministry says it is analyz- ing the potential repercussions of Plan S on the country’s science and finances, and on research- ers’ careers. FNRS, the fund for scientific research in Belgium’s Wallonia-Brussels region, is waiting for Plan S to announce its cap on article-processing charges (APCs), the fees for pub- lishing in OA journals, which the coalition’s funders have pledged to pay. “We’re not ready to com- mit if the costs are too high,” says Véronique Halloin, secretary- general of FNRS, whose exist- ing OA mandate caps APC re- imbursement at €500—which Halloin admits is on the low side. Many await the European Commission’s policy: Although its grants represent a small percentage of research funding in Europe, its OA rules can in- fluence national mandates. The commission’s research chief, Carlos Moedas, supports Plan S, and its 7-year funding pro- gram Horizon Europe, which will begin in 2021, contains general statements of support for OA. Plan S’s rules will go into the program’s model con- tract for grants, Smits says. Smits has found unexpected support from China, which now produces more scientific papers than any other coun- try. Last month, China’s largest government research funder and two na- tional science libraries issued strong state- ments backing Plan S’s goals. “China needs to contribute to international open access [and] open its research results to its own people,” says Zhang Xiaolin of Shanghai- Tech University in China, who chairs the Strategic Planning Committee of the Chi- nese National Science and Technology Li- brary. Even if Chinese organizations do not join Plan S formally, similar OA policies in China would have a “huge, perhaps deci- sive impact on the publishing industry,” MacKie-Mason says. For now, North America is not following suit. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was the first Plan S participant out- side Europe, and another pri- vate funder may follow. But U.S. federal agencies are sticking to policies developed after a 2013 White House order to make peer-reviewed papers on work they funded freely available within 12 months of publication (Science, 10 April 2015, p. 167). “We don’t anticipate making any changes to our model,” said Brian Hitson of the U.S. Depart- ment of Energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who directs that agency’s public access policy. Nor are the three main fed- eral research funders in Canada ready to change their joint 2015 OA policy. Plan S is “a bold and aggressive approach, which is why we want to make sure we’ve done our homework to ensure it would have the best ef- fect on Canadian science,” says Kevin Fitzgibbons, executive director of corporate planning and policy at Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Re- search Council in Ottawa. Outside Europe and North America, funders gave Science mixed responses about Plan S. India, the third biggest pro- ducer of scientific papers in the world, will “very likely” join Plan S, says Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan in New Delhi, principal scientific adviser to India’s government. But the Russian Science Foundation is not planning to join. South Africa’s National Research Foundation says it “supports Plan S in principle,” but wants to consult stakeholders before signing on. Jun Adachi of the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, an adviser to the Japan Alliance of Univer- sity Library Consortia for E-Resources, says that despite interest from funders and li- braries, OA has yet to gain much traction in his country. South America has a strong tradition of OA repositories and fee-free publish- ing, often with government subsidies. Bianca Amaro, president of LA Referencia, a Santiago-based Latin American network of repositories, says Plan S takes a more “systemic view” than previous policies, and she values its pledge to monitor APCs and their impact—a worry for lower-income countries. “We’ll see how Europe handles this,” she says. Of course, MacKie-Mason says, not every funding agency will agree that Plan S is the best way to universal OA. “But some will agree it’s good enough and perhaps our best chance to transform the publishing indus- try soon,” he says. It comes in the wake of often incremental OA initiatives in the past 15 years, and some disagreement about the best route to OA. “In the OA movement, it seems to a lot of people that you have to choose a road: green or gold or diamond,” says Colleen Campbell, director of the OA2020 initiative at the Max Planck Digital Library in Munich, Germany, referring to various styles of OA. “Publish- ers are sitting back laughing at us while we argue about different shades” instead of focusing on a shared goal of complete, im- mediate OA. Because of its bold, stringent requirements, she and others think Plan S can galvanize advocates to align their ef- forts to shake up the publishing system. The Plan S team predicts steady growth in the coming months. Funders will dis- cuss Plan S in São Paulo, Brazil, at the May meeting of the Global Research Council, an informal group of funding agencies. Al- though Smits will leave the European Com- mission in March, the Plan S coalition is seeking a replacement who can keep the momentum going. “The combined weight of Europe and China is probably enough to move the sys- tem,” says astrophysicist Luke Drury, of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and the lead author of a cautiously supportive response to Plan S by All European Acad- emies, a federation of European academies of sciences and humanities. If Plan S does succeed in bringing about a fairer publishing system, he says, a transition to worldwide OA is sure to follow. “Some- body has to take the lead, and I’m pleased that it looks like it’s coming from Europe.” j With reporting by Jef rey Brainard, Sanjay Kumar, Dennis Normile, and Brian Owens. Paper players Percentages of the world’s 2016 science articles by country China United States 18.6 Germany Japan India United Kingdom Other countries France Italy South Korea Russia Canada Brazil Spain Australia 17.8 4.8 4.5 4.3 4.2 3 3 2.8 2.6 2.5 2.3 2.3 2.2 25.1 Published by AAAS o n A p ril 5 , 2 0 2 1 h ttp ://scie n ce .scie n ce m a g .o rg / D o w n lo a d e d fro m http://science.sciencemag.org/ The world debates open-access mandates Tania Rabesandratana DOI: 10.1126/science.363.6422.11 (6422), 11-12.363Science ARTICLE TOOLS http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6422/11 CONTENT RELATED file:/content PERMISSIONS http://www.sciencemag.org/help/reprints-and-permissions Terms of ServiceUse of this article is subject to the is a registered trademark of AAAS.ScienceScience, 1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005. The title (print ISSN 0036-8075; online ISSN 1095-9203) is published by the American Association for the Advancement ofScience Science. 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