Plan S and academic publishing empires: response to Burgman et al. 2018

In response to the editorial “Open Access and Academic Imperialism” by Burgman and a large group of editors (2018), we wish to express our disappointment with their narrow interpretation of the recent attempts to make academic literature more openly accessible and what consequences this might have for the global conservation community. What Burgman et al. refer to as the “European initiative,” is the Plan S open access initiative (https:// www.coalition-s.org). The plan mandates that “from 2021, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant open access journals or platforms.” Specifically, “public grants” means grants from an international consortium currently consisting of 16 national funders and 2 charitable foundations from 14 countries. The consortium is likely to expand in the future; for example, major Chinese funders have recently expressed support for Plan S (Schiermeier 2018). We encourage readers to have a closer look at the Plan S principles and the implementation plan (https://www.coalition-s.org/principlesand-implementation/). Plan S is more about open access to scientific results produced with public funding and less about money. However, much of the discussion around Plan S revolves around the costs of either getting published or accessing research results, both covered largely by public funds. We believe the current “readerpays” model, including the hybrid option advocated by Burgman et al., is expensive and unfair; Plan S partly addresses the equity issue Burgman et al. flag; and Plan S can act as a catalyst for a transformation toward a more equal and inclusive publication system, both for researchers across the globe and at different financial and career stages.