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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

China backs bold plan to tear down journal paywalls [nature.com]

In a huge boost to the open-access movement, librarians and funders in China have said that they intend to make the results of publicly funded research free to read immediately on publication.

The move, announced at an open-access meeting this week in Berlin, includes a pledge of support for Plan S, a bold initiative launched in September [nature.com] by a group of European funders to ensure that, by 2020, their scientists make papers immediately open.

It is not yet clear when Chinese organizations will begin implementing new policies, or whether they will adopt all of Plan S's details, but Robert-Jan Smits, the chief architect of Plan S, says the stance is a ringing endorsement for his initiative. "This is a crucial step forward for the global open-access movement," he says. "We knew China was reflecting to join us — but that it would join us so soon and unambiguously is an enormous surprise."

In three position papers, China's National Science Library (NSL), its National Science and Technology Library (NSTL) and the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), a major research funder, all said that they support the efforts of Plan S "to transform, as soon as possible, research papers from publicly funded projects into immediate open access after publication, and we support a wide range of flexible and inclusive measures to achieve this goal". "We demand that publishers should not increase their subscription prices on the grounds of the transformation from subscription journals to open access publishing," the papers say.

Previously: Plan S: Radical Open-Access Science Initiative in Europe [soylentnews.org]
Wellcome Trust and Gates Foundation Join "Plan S" Open-Access Initiative [soylentnews.org]

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