Rector cautious about Plan S

Plan S, a European initiative to boost open-access publishing, must be implemented carefully to avoid harming researchers, the University of Oslo’s rector has warned.

Svein Stølen wrote in a blog post on 26 September that the plan’s launch earlier this month was a “radical step” towards achieving open access to research results. Under the plan, a group of now 13 funders will dictate where and how the researchers they support can publish their results.

However, Stølen cautioned that the plan’s vision of a world in which open-access publishing has become the norm and big publishers hold less power over researchers is far from reality.