Working Together: An OA2020 and cOAlition S Joint Statement

From a Joint Statement From cOAlition S and OA2020:

With their common strategy aimed at removing paywalls from published research articles, cOAlition S and OA2020 work in synergy on both sides of the scholarly publishing chain to achieve open access in scholarly journals and alternative publishing venues.

One of several pathways pursued by OA2020 participants is to negotiate transformative agreements under which the funds previously spent for subscriptions are repurposed to cover the costs associated with open access publishing. This approach enables a swift and efficient transition to open access, in which ‘hybrid’ publishing models can be included to increase the proportion of articles published open access— without paying twice for services relating to one piece of content.

Institutions who engage in such agreements will contribute to delivering the greatest possible range in Plan S-compliant publishing options to their authors while significantly growing the proportion of research made openly available. At the same time, cOAlition S recognizes the importance, as one of three routes towards full and immediate open access, of those agreements in providing a strong incentive for scholarly publishers who have yet to pilot open access models. Publishers will find institutions and consortia willing to partner on such agreements in exchange for a commitment to a definitive transition to full and immediate open access with fair and transparent pricing. Neither the cOAlition S funders nor the OA2020 partners intend to pay for open access publishing in hybrid subscription journals outside such transformative agreements.

Both cOAlition S and OA2020 acknowledge the strong alignment and coherence of their aims and vision. Together they call for research funding and research performing organizations globally to join them in withdrawing support from paywall publishing and ensure full and immediate Open Access to scholarly research publications.

Read the Complete Statement

Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Funding, News, Open Access, Publishing