(15 Jan 2021) In a step towards open access, the publisher of Science will start allowing some authors publishing in its high-profile subscription journals to share their accepted manuscripts openly online under liberal terms that mean anyone could reproduce or redistribute the work.
The change ensures that scientists with grants from some funding agencies that insist on open-access (OA) publishing under the bold Plan S initiative can still publish in the Science family of subscription journals. Around two dozen funders have signed up to Plan S, which formally began on 1 January 2021, although individual agencies have different starting dates.
In the past two months, many selective subscription journals have introduced options for authors to pay fees to have their papers published OA, in response to Plan S. But the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington DC, which publishes Science, says it wants to avoid this because it is concerned about introducing OA-publication charges that could be financially out of reach for authors.
The new AAAS policy instead allows researchers funded by some Plan S agencies to post accepted versions of their articles online freely as soon as their papers appear — and under open licences that let anyone else redistribute or reproduce the manuscripts. (Some Plan S agencies haven’t yet finalized their policies over manuscript-sharing, such as the national UK funder, UK Research and Innovation, so the policy doesn’t apply to them yet.)
The news in full is here.
