Plan S is an initiative for Open Access publishing that was launched in September 2018. The plan is supported by cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funding and performing organisations. Plan S requires that, from 2021, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms.
cOAlition S funders include Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), World Health Organisation, and the European Research Council.
More details about cOAlition S here.
Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) has developed a detailed open access policy which is aligned with Plan S. In order to assist researchers in complying with the open access policy, they have written Open Access Publishing Guide and SFI Open Access policy 2022 – FAQs
Plan S open access requirements
Plan S requires that all scholarly articles resulting from research funded by cOAlition S members must be made open access immediately upon publication without an embargo.
You can:
Publish in a fully OA journal or on an OA platform, with a CC BY licence. Examples: BMJ Open, PLOS One, HRB Open Research
Publish in a subscription journal (closed access, behind a paywall) or a hybrid journal (mixture of closed and open access articles) and deposit a version of your article (either the Author Accepted Manuscript or the Version of Record) in the RCSI repository, under a CC BY licence, but without embargo
Use the Plan S Journal Checker Tool to find out if the journal you wish to publish in aligns with your funding agency’s open access requirements.
Note: if you publish behind a paywall (closed access; no CC licence) and transfer copyright to the publisher, then the embargo will most likely be an issue. Most publishers insist on an embargo, often 12 months. To help you to negotiate with publishers, cOAlition S has developed a Rights Retention Strategy and templates of notification to publishers.
See cOAlition S Rights Retention Strategy and the Pre-submission and Submission Letter Templates
Funding for open access article publishing charges
Article processing charges (APCs) for publishing in fully open access journals will normally be covered by cOAlition S funders. Publishing open access in hybrid journals (mixture of open and closed access papers) may be covered only if the journal is part of a transformative arrangement. Transformative agreements mean that the publisher has agreed to transition to open access. More details here.
RCSI is a member of the IReL consortium, who have negotiated deals with publishers whereby researchers may publish open access without paying APCs. Full details of the deals, together with terms and conditions, are available on the IReL website and the Library’s LibGuide.
More about complying with Plan S requirements here
Definitions: cOAlition S define Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAM) and Versions of Record (VoR) as follows:
AAM: version of the work as accepted for publication, including all changes made during the peer review process
VoR: version of a journal article that has been made available by any organization that acts as a publisher by formally and exclusively declaring the article “published”
cOAlition S Rights Retention Strategy
cOAlition S has developed a Rights Retention Strategy to give researchers supported by a cOAlition S Organisation the freedom to submit manuscripts for publication to their journal of choice, including subscription journals, whilst remaining fully compliant with Plan S.
For research funded fully or in part by a cOAlition S agency, papers must be made freely available on publication, with no embargo, and with a CC BY licence. The Version of Record should preferably be made open access at the publisher’s website, but an Accepted Manuscript in a repository is also acceptable, providing there is no embargo and it has a CC BY licence. If required, a CC BY ND or equivalent may be acceptable.
Implementing the Rights Retention Strategy
The cOAlition S Office has contacted around 150 publishers to make them aware of the strategy and encourage them to allow all authors to make their Author Accepted Manuscripts available with a CC BY licence at the time of publication and without embargo. By exception, publishers can choose to allow this for just those researchers who are funded, in whole or in part, by a cOAlition S Organisation.
The publishers were informed that the Author Accepted Manuscripts will already be licensed under a CC licence and authors are bound by prior obligation to add a CC licence to the Author Accepted Manuscript and Version of Record, taking legal precedence over any later Licence to Publish or Copyright Transfer Agreement that the publisher may ask the author to sign.
The letter sent to publishers can be found here.
Use the Plan S Journal Checker Tool to find out if the journal you wish to publish in aligns with your funding agency’s open access requirements.
More information about the Rights Retention Strategy here.
Science Foundation Ireland’s SFI Open Access policy 2022 – FAQs includes advice and wording for Rights Retention statements.
Definitions: COAlition S define Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAM) and Versions of Record (VoR) as follows:
AAM: version of the work as accepted for publication, including all changes made during the peer review process
VoR: version of a journal article that has been made available by any organization that acts as a publisher by formally and exclusively declaring the article “published”
cOAlition S state that some publishers are “unclear and obstructive” regarding rights retention. Their recommendation to authors is to contact the publishers prior to submission to clarify their position, before making a final decision on submitting to the journal. They also recommend authors include a covering letter to the publisher accompanying the submitted manuscript to confirm that they are applying a CC BY licence to the paper.
Further details regarding publisher equivocation can be found in an open letter to researchers
See the Rights Retention Resources page for:
User Guide
Pre-submission Letter Template
Submission Letter Template
How to reuse and share your knowledge as you wish through Rights Retention
Use the Journal Checker tool to determine how your preferred journal allows you to comply with your funder’s Plan S policy
Inform the publisher upon submission of your research article that you have applied a CC BY licence to the Author Accepted Manuscript arising from it
Share the Author Accepted Manuscript in an Open Access repository, at the time of publication, without embargo, under a CC BY licence
