Change is Coming: Plan S From the Early Career Scientist Perspective
Authors: Nuno M. Borges, Anna Kabanova, Florian Scherer
Journal: HemaSphere (2020)

Launched in September 2018, Plan S is a European initiative aimed at enforcing open access scientific publications by 2021. Plan S has been initiated by Science Europe and the European Commission and is supported by cOAlition S, an international consortium of national research funders and charitable organizations such as the Wellcome Trust, who have agreed to follow and implement the ten core principles of Plan S (https://www.coalition-s.org/addendum-to-the-coalition-s-guidance-on-the-implementation-of-plan-s/principles-and-implementation/).1,2 These principles state the authors retain the copyrights of their work, that publication fees be covered by funding bodies, and that hybrid publication models are no longer supported. They build the framework for Plan S's major goal: to make scholarly publications openly available to all researchers worldwide. In this opinion piece, we will discuss the implications of Plan S for young scientists such as PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and young PIs, and highlight the consequences for their early-stage careers. Some of the potential advantages of this initiative are obvious. At the most basic level, Plan S is a definitive step towards providing free and open access research, as it establishes clear guidelines and deadlines for participating institutions and funding organizations. Research institutions worldwide continuously struggle to reach agreements with publishing houses about subscriptions and its costs, which means that not every publication, regardless of the journal's reputation, is made widely accessible. Plan S aims to solve this problem by forcing researchers and funding organizations to make their publications available through open access journals, platforms, or repositories. This might be particularly important in situations like the current outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in which the research community, industrial partners, and government authorities rely on openly available studies and fast access to raw scientific data. Such a scenario would also substantially support and help initiatives such as the ‘Call for Action’ of the Wellcome Trust (https://wellcome.org/coronavirus-covid-19/open-data) or the Helmholtz Open Science Office, which constantly assemble openly available publications of a certain topic and allocate them to researchers in a condensed manner. Generally, Plan S may promote easier and faster collaborations, as institutions are encouraged to align their publication policies, which would make it easier especially for young researchers who often move between institutions. Furthermore, Plan S aims to implement a price transparency framework (https://www.coalition-s.org/coalition-s-announces-price-transparency-requirements/) that helps to define reasonable and fair open access publication fees, which is particularly important for young scientists. However, several aspects of Plan S have been met with a fair share of criticism. One of the major concerns raised by researchers themselves has been how this will affect their options for publication. Several publishers have expressed their commitment to join the initiative by early 2021, including Springer Nature with its flagship Nature.3 However, a number of high profile journals have yet to endorse Plan S, which would make them non-compliant at first. This would mean that researchers based in a compliant institution would miss out on a relevant publication, thus compromising their academic freedom. Furthermore, publications in hybrid journals (with a mix of open access and paywall) will become non-compliant and therefore inaccessible. This could result in researchers being unable to publish in journals deemed more prestigious, which could have negative impact on their careers. As a consequence, the European Research Council (ERC), despite being fully committed to implementing open access, has decided to withdraw its support of Plan S and cOAlition S in July 2020. In its statement, the ECR argues that ‘[…] the publication of research results in hybrid venues outside of transformative arrangements will be ‘non-compliant’ as of 1 January 2021, leading to the non-eligibility of related publication costs. The Scientific Council considers that this will be detrimental, especially for early career researchers, researchers working in countries with fewer alternative funding opportunities or working in fields in which Open Access policies are more difficult to implement’ (https://erc.europa.eu/news/erc-scientific-council-calls-open-access-plans-respect-researchers-needs). Interestingly, along with the criticism comes the realization that perhaps some of the issues lie deeper than we realize. Some would argue that the notion that not being able to publish in a high impact journal could be detrimental to one's career is part of the problem. The value of our work should not be measured by the journal's prestige but rather by research and data quality. Equally, prioritizing journals which are open access but less prestigious would make it accessible for those unable to afford subscription fees to access high quality work. This would ultimately result in a paradigm shift moving away from the focus on impact factors. In this perspective, Plan S might accelerate such changes and alleviate publication pressure which is a great toll upon the shoulders of young scientists. Supporters of Plan S indeed emphasize this point in the central memorandum (https://www.coalition-s.org/why-plan-s/) and encourage a revision of the reward system based on the impact factor assessment of research outcome. Another issue relates to international scientific collaboration, and how ties might be cut between institutions with differing views on this initiative. Plan S is a European-specific initiative that is unlikely to be joined in the near future by other countries such as the United States or China, both large contributors to the scientific landscape. This not only could cut ties in global collaboration but also become a unilateral barrier to Europe-based researchers from publishing in prestigious journals. A worldwide effort would be desirable to ensure Europe-based researchers are not put in an unfavorable position compared to their colleagues from other parts of the world. Overall, we are in support of the ideas and intentions of Plan S and see an unmet need to make research data and publications freely accessible to every scientist in the world. However, we advocate for some adjustments to avoid dissatisfaction in the research community. Firstly, we call for every effort to be made to ensure that Plan S becomes a global initiative that guarantees equal conditions for every scientist worldwide. Secondly, journals and societies should be given enough transition time to adapt their business models. We further believe that Plan S should be paralleled by a reciprocal strong commitment from funding agencies to respect its principles in their evaluation of grant applications, and to make these changes attractive and self-sustainable, especially for early-stage scientists. Lastly, pricing of open access publishing needs to be fair to preserve equity between research communities in and outside of Europe, with particular emphasis on countries with more limited national financial support for research.