Plan S special: The man with the Plan

Plan S ‘champion’ Johan Rooryck wants to engage with publishers, not enrage them

The new face of Plan S is well known in academic publishing for his advocacy of and role in ‘flipping’ subscription academic journals to become open-access alternatives.

Despite his having been described by one commentator as a “middle finger to the publishing industry”, there was little sign of antagonism on a September afternoon in the UK town of Windsor at the launch of a Plan S report as Johan Rooryck laughed with representatives of commercial publishers shortly after starting his new role.