Researcher groups call for tweaks to Plan S

Three organisations representing researchers in Europe have restated their support for the open-access publishing initiative Plan S, while suggesting some changes to its implementation.

The European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Eurodoc), the Marie Curie Alumni Association and the Young Academy of Europe published a joint statement on Plan S on 28 January. The groups reaffirmed their “general support” for the initiative, and commended the funders that are backing it—called Coalition S—for addressing initial concerns about it and holding an open consultation on how it will be implemented.

They made some specific suggestions for that implementation. These included that researchers should be allowed to use a copyright licence that restricts others’ use of their publications for derivative works, because of concerns over misrepresentation in the humanities and social sciences. Coalition S should also broaden the allowed machine-readable publication formats and create indicators of compliance to show which journals and repositories are acceptable under the scheme.