Plan S is growing with the WHO recently joining, and has appointed Johan Rooryck as a new champion to succeed Robert-Jan Smits.
Plan S, the ambitious Open Access initiative has reached new heights on 29 August (see news), with the World Health Organisation (WHO) joining cOAlition S as the first of the United Nations’ agencies. The new coalition member promises to help push towards free and immediate access to health research. The WHO was a first mover in Open Access, since it introduced its ‘Hinari Access to Research for Health Programme’ in 2002 and followed up with an own policy on Open Access in 2014, which ensured free access to WHO authored and WHO funded research publications on Europe PubMed Central. In 2016, an own institutional repository for information sharing was added.
Alongside the WHO, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) also joins cOAlition S. TDR is funded by the United Nations Children’s fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and WHO. With the TDR Gateway, TDR has developed its own Open Access publishing platform already.
Plan S is also gaining additional support from the European Commission (EC) again. On 2 September, Jean-Claude Burgelman, the EC’s newly appointed Open Access Envoy joined the cOAlition S Executive Steering Board. Burgelman’s appointment will help to implement the EU’s objectives in the Open Access to publications and data and the EC’s commitment to delivering on the ambitions of Plan S. It may also help to ensure a close link between the Open Access requirements in the EU’s next framework programme for research and innovation, Horizon Europe, where the EC has worked on possible scenarios for the incorporation of Plan S principles.
However, the end of the summer break brought not only new members to cOAlition S; it also finally brought a new leader to spearhead the Plan S initiative. Only a day before the joining of the WHO, cOAlition S announced Johan Rooryck as its new Open Access Champion. Professor Rooryck from Leiden University follows in the footsteps of Robert-Jan Smits, who served as a champion and architect for Plan S during the first months of the initiative. Smits stepped down from his role as Senior Adviser for Open Access and Innovation at the European Political Strategy Centre of the EC and Plan S champion when he started his appointment as President of Eindhoven University of Technology at the end of February 2019. Rooryck will represent cOAlition S towards the outside in meetings with stakeholders, present and promote Plan S, and develop plans to help researchers adapt to a changing publishing landscape thereby guiding Plan S to implementation (see SwissCore article). His curriculum vitae makes him well suited for the role. He is an editor with more than 20 years’ experience and a founder and editor of several Open Access journals.