(28 May 2020) From the executive summary of the report:
This report, commissioned by the Council of Australian University Librarians, for delivery to the DVCsR Committee, provides an analysis of the challenges and opportunities arising from Plan S for Australian researchers and universities, including high-level recommendations on how Australian universities should proceed in order to meet compliance obligations from 2021.
The report considers the scale of the Plan S compliance issue, finding that 5% of Australian university research publications are affected by Plan S compliance obligations, and typically 0-2% of total research funding is from Coalition S funders. However, addressing compliance issues for affected researchers, can provide more open access publication options for all Australian university researchers in line with indications of similar requirements by other funding bodies. This allows for the challenges presented by Plan S compliance to be transformed into opportunities to enhance Australian research visibility more broadly.
While a full set of recommendations can be found at the end of the report, the following summarises the high priority, urgent actions required:
- University Executives must set out clear institutional open access policy positions that align with Plan S and align recognition and reward frameworks accordingly.
- University Executives must ensure there is a central research support capability to identify affected researchers and to offer highly tailored advice.
- Universities must adequately support institutional repositories to fulfil Plan S technical and service requirements.
- CAUL must pursue negotiations with publishers to minimise or eliminate transactional APCs for open access journals.
- CAUL must ensure publishing output data and new consortium models are developed to improve the value of transformative agreements.
Full text of the final report can be downloaded here.
