Springer Nature proposes model for open access transition

SpringerNature aims to make transformative deals (i.e. read and publish deals) a permanent rather than temporary part of the Plan-S open access policy, to allow authors to continue to pay for gold open access in hybrid journals. However, many institutions in receipt of research funding from Coalition-S partners are not currently signed up to such deals as they are prohibitively expensive. Specialist research institutions cannot justify the increased subscription costs read and publish deals would present, since they are likely to involve paying for access to a large range of irrelevant journals. These deals also concentrate subscription spend with major publishers, making less available to spend on perhaps more relevant smaller publishers. In addition, smaller or less wealthy universities, with smaller overall subscription and open access budgets would likely be prevented from signing up for deals regardless of whether they desired the range of journals. As a result of the library being unable to sign up to the package deals, researchers at those universities would be barred from publishing in those hybrid journals, reducing the range of journals they are permitted to publish in. Plan-S is clear in stating that compliant routes to open access for funded authors include publishing in fully open access journals or publishing in subscription/hybrid journals as long as they offer a liberal green open access policy with a 0-month embargo. It is not, as publishers such as SpringerNature have argued, necessary to impose a wholesale flip of all hybrid journals to open access journals nor to rely on complex transformative deals. Major publishers such as SAGE, Emerald and Cambridge University Press have demonstrated that 0-month embargoes are possible and profitable. SpringerNature’s latest statement also continues to equate open access with some kind of payment being involved. It ignores that open access can be free, either via green open access or via the increasing range of free-to-read/free-to-publish funder, university or scholar-led platforms. As a result, Coalition-S should press ahead with its commitment to phasing out paying for open access in hybrid journals.