{"id":21922,"date":"2019-10-23T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T08:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/royalhistsoc.org\/?page_id=21922"},"modified":"2025-07-31T15:58:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T14:58:11","slug":"plan-s-and-history-journals","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/royalhistsoc.org\/policy\/publication-open-access\/plan-s-and-history-journals\/","title":{"rendered":"Plan S and History Journals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Royal Historical Society (RHS) has published its new <a href=\"https:\/\/files.royalhistsoc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/17204855\/RHS_PlanS_Full_Report_Oct19_FINAL_WEB.pdf\">Guidance Paper on \u2018Plan S and the History Journal Landscape\u2019<\/a> (23 October 2019)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>This report is designed to assist History and broader Humanities &amp; Social Sciences stakeholders to understand and navigate the current policy frontiers of open access publishing for peer reviewed scholarly journals.<\/p>\n<p>United Kingdom Research &amp; Innovation (UKRI), the funding body that includes the seven UK research councils as well as Research England, is due to launch two public consultations on open access publication mandates in autumn 2019 and winter 2020.\u00a0 This consultation process reflects UKRI\u2019s membership of cOAlition S, a consortium of international funders established in 2018 which has articulated a new \u2018Plan S\u2019 mandate for open access publication.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The RHS report explains what cOAlition S and Plan S are, and why they matter to Humanities and Social Science researchers, journal editors and learned societies\u2014among other stakeholders.<\/strong>\u00a0 The report uses granular evidence of peer reviewed History journal publication to examine the potential impacts of Plan S implementation by UKRI.\u00a0 The report is based on a summer 2019 RHS survey that attracted responses from 107 UK and international History learned society and proprietary journals.\u00a0 Respondents included both self-publishing journals and journals published by 26 different university and commercial presses.\u00a0 Additionally, the report uses data from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to explore open access journal publication in History.<\/p>\n<p>The RHS report notes the existence of a vibrant portfolio of open access peer-reviewed History journals, with especially strong representation in Spain, Portugal and Latin America.\u00a0 However, these journals do not at present appear to be Plan S \u2018compliant\u2019.\u00a0 More broadly, the report suggests that at present History researchers seeking Plan S compliant journals will find it very challenging, at multiple levels, to identify appropriate publications in which they can publish.<\/p>\n<p>Journal editors are struggling with the complex and highly technical requirements mandated by Plan S.\u00a0 Many are reluctant or unwilling to change their journals\u2019 policies in response to Plan S.\u00a0 The report identifies specific groups of researchers, including early career historians, for whom Plan S-aligned open access mandates may be problematic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In the context of the forthcoming UKRI consultation, the report offers specific recommendations for: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>History researchers (including early career historians)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>journal editors and editorial boards<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>learned societies<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>research organisations <\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>funders\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/files.royalhistsoc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/17204855\/RHS_PlanS_Full_Report_Oct19_FINAL.pdf\">full report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If the goal of OA instead is to build sustainable scholarly systems which\u2014at scale\u2014are capable of both equitably producing and delivering high-calibre research publications to an expanding universe of users, alternative mechanisms to Plan S would surely be devised. These systems would recognise that no person or community can read everything and that different groups of readers and researchers rightly have different types of needs. Systematic investigation of what different communities of readers\u2019 needs are and how they are best served is one of the most glaring gaps in cOAlition S Funders\u2019 approach to OA. To rectify this anomaly, an optimal approach to OA would likely be hybrid\u2014not simply in the sense of including \u2018hybrid\u2019 journals, but in recognising that meeting authors\u2019 and readers\u2019 constrained actual needs\u2014in sharp contrast to fulfilling their imagined infinite needs\u2014may require multiple or tailored delivery systems as well as a diversity of both incentives and mandates for those who produce and disseminate research outputs. This diversity would allow OA systems to accommodate the full range of discipline-based and interdisciplinary research and researchers. It would also foster rather than stifle innovation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\">Margot Finn, President of the Royal Historical Society &#8211; from the report&#8217;s conclusion.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Royal Historical Society (RHS) has published its new Guidance Paper on \u2018Plan S and the History Journal Landscape\u2019 (23 October 2019). This report is designed to assist History and broader Humanities &amp; Social Sciences stakeholders to understand and navigate the current policy frontiers of open access publishing for peer reviewed scholarly journals. United Kingdom <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/royalhistsoc.org\/policy\/publication-open-access\/plan-s-and-history-journals\/\">&#8230;Continue reading &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16346,"featured_media":0,"parent":18621,"menu_order":164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-21922","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalhistsoc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalhistsoc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalhistsoc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalhistsoc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16346"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalhistsoc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21922"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/royalhistsoc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47853,"href":"https:\/\/royalhistsoc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21922\/revisions\/47853"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalhistsoc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalhistsoc.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}