Plan S compliance at BMJ Group

What is Plan S?

Plan S is an initiative to accelerate the transition of scholarly publishing to the open access publishing model where the published results of research which they had funded would be freely available without embargo. There are also longer-term ambitions in the plan to make further improvements to the conduct of scholarly publishing and the assessment of research and these are outlined in the 10 Principles of Plan S.

Who created Plan S?

Plan S was developed in 2018 by a group of national research funders (‘cOAlition S’) whose main objective was to ensure that the published results of research which they had funded would be freely available without embargo.

How does Plan S affect research authors and how is BMJ Group helping authors comply?

To be compliant with Plan S, authors must choose one of the following publication routes, each of which is supported by BMJ Group.

Publish in open access journals or platforms

cOAlition S funders are happy for research they have funded to be published here, and to cover the open access charges involved. 

A third of our journals are fully open access. In this model, authors pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) levied upon acceptance to make the article immediately available on publication. cOAlition S funders will continue to financially support APCs in open access journals. Browse our full list of open access journals.

Publish in subscription journals but also make the articles available in an open access repository

cOAlition S funders are content for research they have funded to be published in subscription journals, but ONLY if it is also made available on an access basis elsewhere and will NOT cover any open access charges involved.

Learn more about our Green open access policy

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