Image: Wellcome
Robert Kiley leaves Wellcome Trust and will stay longer than initially planned at open-access initiative
The head of strategy at Plan S is extending his stint by 13 months, as the influential open-access initiative led by research funders looks to consolidate its recent successes.
Under Plan S, a group of mainly European research funders called Coalition S is requiring the researchers they support to make resulting papers openly available immediately upon publication. Its rules came into force for thousands of researchers supported by these funders at the start of this year.
On 1 June Robert Kiley started on a planned six-month stretch as head of strategy for Plan S, on secondment from his post as head of open research at the Wellcome Trust, a UK-based biomedical research charity that is among the funders implementing the initiative.
But on 30 November, Kiley (pictured) announced he was leaving the Wellcome Trust after more than 25 years, having been made redundant.
Kiley told Research Professional News that he would be working as head of strategy for Plan S from 1 December, employed by the European Science Foundation, which provides the secretariat for Coalition S.
“I will focus on building and maintaining strategic relationships with key stakeholder groups—notably, publishers and library consortia,” he said.
Big plans
Among the aims of Coalition S is to open up more research outputs and make publishing more transparent on pricing.
The initiative was first announced in 2018 and came into effect for most of its supporting funders in 2021. In this short period it has proved influential but controversial. Many publishers have changed their practices as a result of Plan S, but some researchers and publishers are concerned that it will reduce publishing options, in particular for less well funded researchers who might otherwise have published in subscription journals.
The next year or so is seen by many as crucial in determining what the real impact of its ambitious programme will be.
To support the project in this, Kiley will work as an independent contractor for two or three days a week on an initial contract for 13 months, with the possibility of an extension.
More specifically, he told Research Professional News he will manage work on a framework through which publishers are being asked by Coalition S to be transparent about the price of their services, as a condition of researchers funded by Coalition S being allowed to use those services.
He will also oversee the Plan S programme for transforming journals from having subscription-based paywalls to being fully open access. This will include encouraging publishers to take part, and determining whether approved “transformative journals”—those in the process of such a shift—are honouring their commitments.
In addition, he will support activities to encourage independent society publishers to develop publishing models aligned with Plan S, help to implement the Plan S rights-retention strategy, and encourage other funders to sign up to Plan S.
Kiley was interim coordinator of Coalition S for two years before being appointed its head of strategy. He works alongside Coalition S executive director, Johan Rooryck.