Although most publishers say they support a transition to OA from the existing subscription-based model, the decision by Coalition S reflects that progress has been slower than these research funders, and many scientists, would like. “That so many titles were unable to meet their OA growth targets suggests that for some publishers, the transition to full and immediate open access is unlikely to happen in a reasonable time frame,” says Robert Kiley, Coalition S’s head of strategy, in a blog post published today. Since 2021, the Coalition S funders—which include public agencies in Europe and some large charitable funders such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Welcome Trust—have required grantees to make their peer-reviewed journal articles OA immediately, by paying a fee to publish in an OA journal or placing the article in a public repository.
This policy—known as “Plan S”—initially banned grantees from publishing in “hybrid” journals that earn money from both subscriptions and publishing fees, a practice critics call “double-dipping.” But after publishers complained it would take time to shift all journals to an only business model, Coalition S came to a compromise: It would pay the fees for hybrid journals, but in return, publishers had to commit to a steady transition toward publishing 100% of these journal’s articles as OA, with measurable milestones. Coalition S requires these “transitional journals” shown annual increase in the proportion of papers published OA of at least 5 percentage points in absolute terms. They also have to show a 15% increase each year in the share of OA papers relative to the previous year. (The second criterion requires a journal to speed up the transition as the share of OA articles increases.)
However , the new figures show that in 2022, only 30% of the titles enrolled in the transitional journal program met these targets, and just 1% shifted to OA completely, results Kiley calls “clearly disappointing.” Some 1589 titles—68% of journals—failed to meet the targets and will be removed from the program at the end of the year.
The titles to be dropped at the end of this year include 77% of those enrolled as transitional journals by publishing giant Springer Nature, which held the majority of titles in the program, although most members of its elite Nature family of journals met their goals and can remain in the program. When asked about its journals’ performance, a Springer Nature spokesperson told Science Insider that the company is on track to publish 50% of research articles OA by the end of 2024. “We continue to do all we can to drive the transition and encourage others to do the same,” they say. Also on the cut list are 63% of Elsevier titles in the program (but not its flagship Cell) and 56% of the American Chemical Society’s.
Kiley also highlights journals that did meet their OA growth targets, including 94% of The BMJ’s 32 titles and 62% of Cambridge University Press’s 240 journals. He writes that, “on average, learned society publishers seem to be more successful in meeting [transformative journal] targets than some of their commercial counterparts.”
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