Kate Meagher: An important clarifying point to raise about the current Plan S is that while it pushes for making journals open access, it is based on an author-pay article processing charge (APC) model. That means that those with research funding can get the funders to finance the publication charges, but those without funding will face charges of £2,000 plus. Given the lack of research funding available to support African researchers, as noted by many of the discussion participants, the APC model would affect the ability of under-funded African researchers to publish in such open access journals. Plan S would give them greater access to read journals, but less ability to publish in them, turning African researchers into consumers rather than producers of research -- a bit like a research version of dependent economies.
