The welcome announcement last week from Marc Schiltz‘s Science Europe about cOAlition S and the publication of The 10 Principles of Plan S was well received at DOAJ Headquarters. The key principle of Plan S is:
“After 1 January 2020 scientific publications on the results from research funded by public grants provided by national and European research councils and funding bodies, must be published in compliant Open Access Journals or on compliant Open Access Platforms.”
The document continues to outline important factors surrounding the desired model of open access and this model sometimes follows closely DOAJ’s preferred model for open access:
- Authors will retain copyright.
- Content will be published under an open license which fulfils the requirements defined by the Berlin Declaration.
- All scientists should be able to publish Open Access even if they have limited means.
- Publications fees should be standardised or capped.
- The hybrid model of publishing is not compliant with the principles.
DOAJ is pleased to see these principles so in line with the DOAJ criteria.
Lars Bjørnshauge, DOAJ Founder and Managing Director, said: ‘While we should remember that these principles only cover Europe and focus on science and that they may not be applicable on all continents or to the humanities, they will hopefully have a positive impact. Their announcement is timely and they are a welcome move in the right direction. DOAJ is proud to support their implementation.’
A promising move and I would like to know or team up with people to extend this to Asia as well.