Dozens more publishers oppose Plan S transition proposals

Open-access criteria ‘impossible to achieve’ for humanities publishers, funders told

Forty-five more publishers have told the funders behind the Plan S initiative that their proposals for transitioning academic journals to give open access to all primary research are unworkable for them.

Proposals presented by the Coalition S group of funders in November, including that journals must not increase their prices as they transition to full open access, “are far too prescriptive, and do not allow for experimentation of [publishing and pricing] models”, the group of social sciences and humanities publishers said in an open letter in early January.