Blow to Plan S open access project as ERC withdraws support

Glad someone is thinking clearly. Journals need to cover expenses and, in many of the "open access" ones, they need to turn a profit. Where would the money come from if no journal could charge subscription fees? From charging high fees for submission/publication. Great if you are in Europe and have a big grant, but impossible if you are working in a developing country with zero access to publication support and funding. So, yes, with Plan S poorer countries will be able to read everything rich countries publish. They would also loose the possibility of publishing if journals who charge subscriptions and have lower publication fees need to increase them to join the open access club. Want to decolonize academia? How about loosing the missionary attitude.

Once again, the academics with the least power (early career researchers) and the least money (from poorer countries) are used as an excuse to maintain a status quo that primarily benefits Elsevier shareholders and established, senior researchers. This is pure cowardice on behalf of the ERC and the fact that they haven’t consulted with the very individuals on whose behalf they claim to be acting suggests that they knew full well that early career researchers are overwhelmingly in favor of open access. This stinks.

Yes, Plan S will be a challenge for smaller publishers and learned societies, but the status quo, where an oligopoly of only five publishers control access to over 50% of all research published is no longer tolerable. The Covid pandemic, and the big publishers’ magnanimous attempts to curry favour by making Covid research freely accessible only underscore that they are essentially holding the knowledge of the world to ransom.