Plan S: It’s Not Going Great
A new report has its own limitations, but even with those, Plan S doesn't seem to be working
A report commissioned by cOAlition S in 2023 was released this week by a group of consultants, all of whom have library backgrounds, with two having defined OA advocacy roles at their organizations.
The report finds that Plan S has had unintended consequences — bolstering hybrid journals, mainly — and that cOAlition S has been less-than-effective in many ways by spreading itself too thin, failing to secure additional funders to participate, and failing to engender grassroots support.
The consultants recommend keeping cOAlition S running beyond 2025, and to pump up its communications game, among other recommendations.
In the section of qualitative effects, the document is a bit scattered, as the secondary effects have been more like waves rippling out than what might be part of a systematic, well-managed approach. As a reporter at Science Insider notes inaccurately, the “S” in Plan S stands for “shock.” That was certainly its intent and effect given how everyone collapsed at its mention.
However, let’s remember that Robert-Jan Smits, the guy who spun it up in the first place, admitted in a book called Plan S for Shock: Science. Shock. Solution. Speed. that it stands for “Smits”:
Just as “shock” is a myth, so is its author, a person who has no experience publishing, producing papers, or evaluating scientific claims.
Smits is just an untrustworthy, vain, self-serving carpetbagger.
However, “shock” fits with any rundown of secondary effects. Plan S was a shockwave created just to knock things about, a source of careless disruption without accountability by people who wanted to move fast and break things, like their idols.
But the consultants miss many other secondary effects, because their aperture is too narrow — focused only on cOAlition S, the library community, and mostly European publishers. They also skate blithely past a massive conflict of interest, even praising its existence. And one of the consultants has sterner words in a preprint published with others earlier this month.