Step by step

Four years ago, Leiden professor Johan Rooryck resigned from an Elsevier journal and helped to set up an open-access alternative. He gives Erik te Roller his thoughts on Plan S and the future of publishing.

Sometimes, things are better the second time around. For Johan Rooryck, professor of French linguistics at Leiden University, this is certainly the case with Plan S—an international attempt to make all research funded by its signatories open access—which was revised in May.

“I am very impressed by the new Plan S for the introduction of open access from 1 January 2021,” he says. “The coalition has listened carefully to the reactions in the field.”