IARLA releases a response to Plan S

IARLA is supportive of the overall objectives of Plan S as published by cOAlition S and believes that there have been a number of welcome changes since the first version was published.

However, IARLA notes that the research library community would still like to see:

• Further clarity on the nature of transformative agreements and description of the expectation of what the next steps will be when hybrid funding ends on 31 December 2024.
• Large-scale financial model of the costs of a fully Plan S compliant environment. To date there has not been a sufficiently systematic international modelling of the costs either during the transitional period, or in a post-2024 environment of compliance with Plan S – either in terms of publisher costs or administrative infrastructure costs within and between institutions. We have particular concerns that research-intensive institutions may see significant increases in costs, and that cross-disciplinary research and international collaborations may suffer from complicated financial models.
• Modelling of the possible impacts on smaller, mainly arts, humanities and social sciences institutions and publishers and an analysis of the danger of further market consolidation.

The members of IARLA are committed to advancing open access as put forward in the Plan S Principles and have offered their support to cOAlition S and other funders in advancing their priority actions, and especially those around:

• Transformative publisher agreements;
• Transparency in pricing;
• Monitoring and compliance; and
• Rights retention.

The member organisations of IARLA are ARL, CARL, CAUL, LIBER, and RLUK.