Plan S is an international and collaborative initiative that aims to to achieve full and immediate open access, based around a series of principles.
“With effect from 2021, all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.”
UKRI were an early signatory of plan S, meaning that all successful grant award winners from the UK’s seven research councils, along with many others funders such as the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are subject the requirements of plan S.
*A component of UKRI (formerly RCUK) which as signed at the top level
A major change for plan S from UKRI or REF 2021’s open access policies is around hybrid publication. Unequivocally, plan S does “not support the ‘hybrid’ model of publishing. However, as a transitional pathway towards full Open Access within a clearly defined timeframe, and only as part of transformative arrangements,” This is significant as some major publishers, including Elsevier, have still not agreed a Transformative Agreement, rendering their non-Gold open access titles as non-compliant with plan S. The Journal Checker Tool can be used to ascertain a titles compliance status with plan S.
Plan S does support the Green route to open access, however, it requires a CC BY licence and zero embargo, which is where the Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) comes in. The RRS is handled by a pre-existing legal requirement from the funder to the grantee that supersedes any requirements between the author and the publisher (although it could lead to a breach of contract with the publisher depending on the requirements and actions.)
We encourage all researchers to familiarise themselves with plan S. We would also strongly advise all grant holders looking to publish articles to consult with the Scholarly Communications Manager prior to submitting any articles for publication to ensure that the requirements of plan S are met.