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Plan S  has two primary goals

1. to make scientific publications that result from publicly funded research accessible to everyone and
2. to implement open access without unreasonable costs

What does Plan S mean in practice?

Plan S means that researchers funded by the Coalition S partners need to follow in their research projects. In practice there are three ways of publishing articles open access (Source: ): 

1. Open access journals or platforms 

   • Immediate open access under by publishing article in an open access journal or platform 

2. Transformative open access agreements and journals 

   • Immediate open access under by publishing article:
     • under a transformative open access agreement in a subscription (hybrid) journal, or
     • in

3. Manuscript route 

   • Immediate open access under for the peer-reviewed manuscript (AAM) by:
     1. publishing article in a subscription journal behind the paywall, and
     2. self-archiving the AAM in a trusted repository (ACRIS/Aaltodoc in Aalto University) immediately after publication with CC BY license
        • Personal websites and databases, publisher websites, as well as cloud storage services, Academia.edu, ResearchGate etc. are not considered as trusted repositories.
        • Aalto University has adopted a prior licence model that enables self-archiving and immediate open access of peer-reviewed manuscripts under a CC license required by the funder, regardless of any restrictions set by the publisher. Prior licence model applies to manuscripts submitted for review on or after 1 January 2026.

Please note:

• Publishers usually offer the option of publishing the article open access to comply with Plan S principles.
• With the help of the Aalto University prior licence model, the researcher and the university implement immediate open access publishing of research publications as is required by the research funders, regardless of any restrictions defined by the publisher.
• The prior licence model allows researchers to meet funders' open access requirements even in cases where paying the open access fee (APC fee) is not feasible, or publisher's policy does not allow self-archiving without an embargo or under Creative Commons license required by the funder. 

Contact information

For any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Open Science and ACRIS team at acris@aalto.fi.