Towards a Plan(HS)S: DARIAH's position on PlanS

On 4 September 2018, national science funders from 11 EU countries announced the launch of cOAlition S to express the collective will of making full and immediate Open Access to research publications a reality. The key principles to achieve this are articulated in their 10-point Plan S. According to the plan, from 2020, all scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants provided by participating national and European research councils and funding bodies must be published in compliant Open Access journals or on compliant Open Access platforms. To achieve this, research funders will cover the costs of publications as part of research grants.

The plan has sparked intense debates from the moment of its release. In addition to the signatories, there is a large group of key stakeholders, both on European and national levels, who have expressed their support and endorsement for the principles even if they still have not formally added their signatures to it.

DARIAH-ERIC joined this discussion forming a task force to work on a Position Paper that adds arts and humanities researchers and disciplines within this dialogue. DARIAH fully endorses the principles of Open Access and is in favour of powerful Open Access policies aiming to accelerate the transition towards full and immediate Open Access to scientific publications within a reasonably short time. However, we believe that Plan S reveals a strong bias toward the STEM perspective on not just publishing, but on research itself, which makes it diverge with the values of DARIAH and its key constituency, arts and humanities researchers, who most commonly do not fund their work through projects, and for whom the term ‘science’ may seem alienating.