Towards Responsible Publishing

NOTE :This record consists of two files: the Towards responsible Publishing Proposal and a Summary of the proposal. 

cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funding and performing organisations committed to making full and immediate Open Access a reality, is seeking input from the global research community on the proposal to establish a community-based scholarly communication system, fit for open science in the 21st century.

In the five years that have elapsed since the publication of the Plan S principles, the move towards full and immediate Open Access (OA) has become global and irreversible. However, academic publishing practices are not keeping up with rapid advances in the way science is performed, openly disseminated, and used. This disconnect increasingly threatens the goal of universal OA for research outputs. 

The COVID pandemic has illustrated the need for faster and more efficient publishing models. The traditional publishing system was simply too slow to disseminate critical and urgently needed scientific information on SARS-CoV2.  In response, scholars all over the world are adopting new publishing practices to improve dissemination and peer review of new research findings. Researchers are increasingly sharing articles ahead of peer review and are starting to participate in open peer review of such author-shared articles. In addition, research institutions and researchers, for example in Latin America, have championed innovative models, referred to as 'diamond' publishing, that offer scholar-led publishing services that are free to authors and readers. 

These developments are forcing funders and other stakeholders – especially university libraries who procure publishing services on behalf of their researchers – to re-think how best to deliver scholarship in a responsible, equitable and sustainable way. 

In this document we propose a vision and a set of principles that a future scholarly communication system should aspire to and define the mission that can allow research funders – in collaboration with other key stakeholders – to deliver this. 

For such a scholar-led system to be successful however, it will need broad support from the research community. To understand if the proposal outlined here resonates with the community of researchers, cOAlition S with support from Research Consulting Limited will embark on a consultative process that offers researchers the opportunity to voice their opinions and contribute to the development of a proposal that serves their needs.  Further details of this consultation process are outlined in Section 8. 

Based on the feedback we receive through this consultation, a revised proposal will be developed for the cOAlition S funders to consider in June 2024. 

The consultation will run from November 2023 until March 2024.  

The link to the survey is here: https://survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90624212/cOAlition-S-towards-responsible-publishing

Details of how the research community can contribute to this can be found at: www.coalition-s.org/towards-responsible-publishing