Global support for Plan S gathers pace

Open-access plan gains backing from India, Jordan and Zambia

The Plan S open-access initiative, which has divided researchers in Europe, is inching closer to the global backing it needs to bring about a revolution in academic publishing.

Plan S gained potentially transformative support on 12 February when K Vijay Raghavan, the Indian government’s principal scientific adviser, announced that his country would join the coalition of funders backing the initiative. “India joining Coalition S: journal subscriptions, publishing charges block access to publicly funded knowledge,” he said on Twitter. He added that India would “optimise” the initiative to its benefit, but did not elaborate on how or specify which of the country’s funders would participate.