Library Research Support Services
Open Access funder policies are changing: "There is no valid reason to maintain any kind of subscription-based business model for publishing in the digital world" (Marc Schiltz, Science Europe and instigator of Plan S).
Plan S, from cOAlitionS, is a high level set of principles on the future of open access with global funder signatories including Wellcome, UKRI, EU, Bill & Melinda Gates.
University of Plymouth Open Access policy aligns with REF requirements for maximum visibility of outputs via the PEARL repository.
University of Plymouth Open Access Policy
University of Plymouth policy on Open Access
The University of Plymouth requires researchers to import or create a record for all their University affiliated research outputs and deposit an appropriate version of each publication via Pure. To align with the REF 2021 OA policy, all journal articles and conference papers must be deposited within 90 days of the date of acceptance.
- University of Plymouth Research Publications and Open Access PolicyRatified March 2016, amended March 2022
The changing future of Open Access Policies: Plan S
Plan S is built on a framework of 10 key principles and was adopted by cOAlitionS funder signatories from 2021. UKRI and Wellcome Trust's revised OA policies align closely with key Plan S principles:
-
Publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms
-
Authors or their institutions must retain copyright of their publications, and to publish under a CC-BY licence
-
The funders will not support publication in 'hybrid' journals (journals which charge both publication fees and APCs), unless such journals commit to changing their business model within a clearly defined timeframe (often called 'transformative agreements')
-
When assessing research outputs during funding decisions, funders will value the intrinsic merit of the work and not consider the publication channel, its impact factor (or other journal metrics), or the publisher.
Why are funders influencing publishing practice?
Where there's a prize, there's a game...
Essentially, funders want research to be open and reused for maximum societal gain and are increasingly concerned about publishers owning the rights to publicly funded research preventing fast dissemination of knowledge or charging unsustainable fees and making huge profits when these rights are bought back in order for work to be made open.
Academia has also traditionally rewarded researchers who publish in these 'prestige' venues to the point that some researchers may feel pressured to change their behaviour to 'get published'. This is why we see evidence of dubious activity reported on sites like Retraction Watch. These structures also reinforce global rankings that use such metrics and can often exclude diverse voices.
The Plan S principles combine all these issues and aims to drive institutional and researcher behaviour change in publishing and assessment of research for an open, healthy and integrity-driven research culture.
Examples of real-world change:
- Utrecht University withdraws from global ranking as debate on quantitative metrics growSciencebusiness.net article
- Sorbonne University unsubscribes from the Web of ScienceSorbonne University news page
- NIHR Open Research platformExample of funder Open publishing platform where null results can be reported supporting efficiency & transparency in research