The impact of Plan S: a discussion on findings so far

As well as the recording above, please find responses to unanswered questions and panelists slides – Ashley Farley (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), Pablo de Castro (scidecode and University of Strathclyde), Wolfgang Benedikt Schmal (scidecode and the Walter Eucken Institut, Freiburg) and Emma Wilson (Royal Society of Chemistry)

Date: Tuesday April 9, 2024

Time: 3.00 pm – 4.15 pm BST 

Other time zones: 07:00 am Pacific Time | 09:00 am Central Time |10:00 am Eastern Time | 11:00 am Brasilia Time | 4:00 pm Central European Time | 15:00 pm West Africa Time | 4.00 pm South Africa Standard Time | 7.30 pm India Standard Time | 10.00 pm Central Indonesia Time (Time converter tool)

Last October the cOAlition S group of funders commissioned a study by scidecode science consulting to assess the impact of Plan S. The study investigates various aspects of where this initiative by a group of research funders to promote immediate Open Access may have had an influence on the global scholarly communications landscape. Five months on from the kick-off meeting for this project, this session will offer an opportunity for the early results of this work to be presented and discussed with the OASPA network.

The webinar may be of particular interest to the publishing community and will include a presentation from the Royal Society of Chemistry as an example roadmap for a full journal portfolio flip to a fully Open Access business model. 

The webinar is relevant for all stakeholders that have been represented in interviews in the course of the study – institutional Open Access advocates and librarians, consortia, research funders, researchers and publishers. Members of the scidecode team of consultants – all of whom are affiliated with research-performing organisations – are keen to listen to the feedback from the wider community on the early findings and recommendations arising from the study and will be collecting further input during the session itself.

Session outline

• 5-min intro by cOAlition S representative Ashley Farley of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on why this study was commissioned and what its objectives are 
• 20-min scidecode slot where the project work and its early results will be presented by members of the scidecode team Pablo de Castro and Wolfgang Benedikt Schmal
• 15-min presentation by Emma Wilson of the Royal Society of Chemistry on their roadmap for a transition to full immediate OA and the impact that Plan S has had on its design
• 35-min discussion with the audience via Zoom polls and a Q&A

The seminar will be chaired by Iryna Kuchma (EIFL)

Please share with all those you think may be interested.

Please note that views expressed in OASPA webinars are those of the individual speakers and do not represent the view of OASPA.

Panelist biographies

Panelists

Ashley Farley, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, USA https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9310-6944

Over the past decade Ashley Farley has worked in both academic and public libraries, focusing on digital inclusion and facilitating access to scholarly content. She completed her Masters in Library and Information Sciences through the University of Washington’s Information School.

Ashley is the Program Officer of Knowledge and Research Services at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In this capacity she leads the foundation’s Open Access Policy’s implementation and associated initiatives. This includes leading the work of Gates Open Research, a transparent and revolutionary publishing platform. Other core activities involve supporting the strategic and operational aspects of the foundation’s library. This work has sparked a passion for open access, believing that freely accessible knowledge has the power to improve and save lives.

Pablo de Castro, scidecode and University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6300-1033

Pablo de Castro (@pcastromartin) is leading the project to deliver a study on the impact of Plan S for cOAlition S on behalf of a team of external consultants at scidecode science consulting. Pablo has been working at the forefront of Open Access implementation at various institutions and projects in the UK, the Netherlands and Spain for nearly 20 years and is currently serving as Open Access Advocacy Librarian at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK. In this capacity Pablo chairs (since 2020) the Read & Publish Deals Scotland Working Group as a cross-institutional coordination forum to discuss the various Open Access implementation workflows and funding mechanisms currently available. He is a physicist and an expert in scholarly communications and research information workflows and management systems. Pablo also works as Technical Secretary for the Netherlands-based euroCRIS non-profit association to promote collaboration across the research information management community. 

Wolfgang Benedikt Schmal, scidecode and the Walter Eucken Institut, Freiburg, Germany https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2400-2468

W. Benedikt Schmal is a research group lead at Walter Eucken Institute in Freiburg (Germany) and holds a PhD in competition economics from the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (Germany). He studies the economics of science, open access, and academic publishing. He is particularly interested in the economics of ‘transformative agreements.’ His work has been published, among others, in Research Policy, Scientometrics, and Managerial & Decision Economics.

Emma Wilson, Royal Society of Chemistry, UK
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6362-3406

Emma Wilson is the Director of Publishing at the Royal Society of Chemistry. She has strategic responsibility for the RSC’s portfolio of journals, books, and chemistry databases, ensuring that the publishing portfolio delivers against the Society’s mission to help the chemical sciences community make the world a better place. A particular focus is working with the chemistry community and other stakeholders to accelerate the transition to Open Access publishing models and supporting the development and adoption of Open Science practices. She has previously served on the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) Board and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) Board. Prior to joining the RSC in 2006 she held a variety of editorial and business development roles at Elsevier and before that trained and worked as a biochemist (Sheffield University, Cambridge University and La Sapienza University).

Chair

Iryna Kuchma, EIFL

Iryna Kuchma has been managing the EIFL Open Access Programme (EIFL-OA) since 2008. Working in collaboration with libraries and library consortia in more than 60 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe, she advocates for open access to research results, facilitates the development and implementation of open science policies and infrastructures, and provides support and training.

An expert in open access, open data and open science, Iryna has published several works (see the full list), and contributed to recent reports including ‘Good Practice Advice for Managing Multilingual and non-English Language Content in Repositories’ by the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) Task Force on Supporting Multilingualism  and ‘Quality Evaluation Criteria, Best Practices, and Assessment Systems for Institutional Publishing Service Providers’ by the DIAMAS project.