Academy of Finland joins cOAlition S

On 4 September, eleven national research funding organisations, with the support of the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC), announced the launch of cOAlition S, an initiative to make full and immediate open access to research publications a reality. It is built around an open access plan called Plan S. The objective of Plan S is to make paywalled publications that result from publicly funded research accessible to everyone and to implement open access without unreasonable costs.

Riitta Maijala, Vice President for Research at the Academy of Finland, has covered Plan S and its impacts in a blog post: “Plan S – European research funding organisations join forces to make open access mainstream”.

The Academy of Finland supports the objectives of Plan S and will work together with other relevant actors to advance them. The Academy acknowledges the importance of working in collaboration with national and international research funders to undertake actions that will further promote open access to scientific publications. The Academy Board discussed Plan S in its meeting on 20 September. However, many details have yet to be worked out and much remains to be done to reach the objectives. Plan S must be thoroughly discussed at national and international level, above all with the scientific community. In exploring new ways of working, all actors must carefully consider the varying situations and practices of different scientific disciplines.

Plan S has been widely welcomed. Organisations such as the European University Association (EUA), the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) have declared their support for the objectives of the plan.

The Academy of Finland is poised to actively participate in the work of cOAlition S. The funders involved in the coalition will collaborate with other stakeholders and work towards a swift and practical implementation of the Plan S principles.