Plan S
What is Plan S?
Plan S is the open access publishing program implemented by cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funders, including the Dutch national funder NWO and the European Commission. The aim of cOAlition S is to boost the transition to open access by uniting various science funders. Plan S requires that all reviewed scientific publications resulting from research funded by participating organizations must be made available in open access journals, on open access platforms or immediately via open access repositories.
When do the Plan S guidelines take effect?
For Dutch researchers, open access will become the standard for all publications resulting from projects awarded funding by NWO from 2021. NWO has an implementation guide in place.
The funding programs of Horizon Europe will seek to align their grant programs with Plan S as much as possible.
What does Plan S mean for TU Delft researchers?
For publications resulting from funding calls that are opened from 1 January 2021, they must be available in open access immediately (without embargo) and with an open license (CC BY). This can be done according to one of the following routes:
- Publication in an open access journal or platform registered in DOAJ
- Publication in an open access journal at the TU Delft OPEN Publishing platform
- Publication in a journal that is part of a transformative agreement of TU Delft
- Publication in a subscription journal and simultaneous archiving of at least the author's version in TU Delft Repository. Coalition S uses the Rights Retention Strategy for this.
- NWO gives Open Access an extra boost by also funding Open Access books
Publishing support for Open Access publishing at TU Delft
In many cases, as a TU Delft researcher, you will already be able to publish open access in a journal that meets the requirements of Plan S. This is because TU Delft Research Support has made many agreements with publishers and societies, in which open access is regulated at an institutional level. More than 98% of all articles reviewed in 2022 are already published open access. As a result, researchers themselves do not receive bills from publishers.
Journal Checker
There is an index in which you can check whether the journal you want to publish in is compliant with the requirements of the financier by means of a Journal Checker.
Answer to all your questions
These the most common questions and answers concerning Plan S and its implementation.
