Major scholarly publishers warn that some titles will become unviable unless open access scheme changes tack on compliance

Research funding agencies behind the Plan S open access project have been urged by academic publishers to reconsider rules that encourage scholars to post their articles in free-to-access repositories, saying this practice “is not financially sustainable” for many publications and “undermines potential support for open access journals”.

In an open letter signed by more than 50 leading publishers, including Elsevier, Wiley, Springer Nature, Emerald, Sage Publishing and Cambridge University Press, as well as several US scientific societies, the academic imprints criticise intellectual property rules introduced by the European-led Coalition S group of 17 funding agencies and six foundations earlier this year.

Under the new requirements for Plan S institution-funded researchers, which asks journal papers to be made free at the point of publication, authors can become Plan S compliant by making scholarly publications that result from their funding immediately available on open access repositories or platforms. Alternatively, they can publish in an open access journal.

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