Over half of Plan S transformative journals miss their targets

Concession to publishers on hybrid journals has weakened Plan S, says open-access publisher

Over half of the journals signed up to the transformative journal programme of the Plan S open-access initiative did not meet their programme targets for their first year, the initiative has revealed.

Under Plan S, a group of funders is requiring full and immediate open access to papers reporting research they have supported. Authors were originally to be barred from using Plan S funder grants to pay for publication in ‘hybrid’ journals offering both subscription and open-access options, but Plan S decided to permit its funders to support publication in such journals provided that the journals commit to transforming to full open access at a certain rate.