Open Access: Europe's Plan A-R Explained

A publisher mansplains 'Titanium OA'
(photo: Rawpixel via Unsplash)

There was much excitement in Brussels this week with the publication of 'Plan S', the European Commission's plan to make all scholarly publications resulting from public research funding open access from 1 January 2020.

But the big question is: what happened to Plans A-R? Robert-Jan Smits, Senior Advisor on Open Access within the European Political Strategy Centre, spoke exclusively to Fundermentals.

'It was a long and difficult process,' suggests, Smits, 'and it took us many months and an awful lot of coffee.'

Smits set out the process that they had been through to reach Plan S, and the 18 previous plans that got them there.

New Director General for EC's DG Research

UKRO is reporting that Robert-Jan Smits has been appointed as teh new Director General for the EC's Directorate General for Research, which runs the Framework Programme. He moves from being Deputy Director-General at the Joint Research Centre. He will take over from José Manuel Silva Rodríguez on 1 July 2010.
Interesting that he was only at the JRC since Feb and appears to have leap frogged the previous incumbent of the Deputy Directorship of the JRC, Anneli Pauli, who moved on to become Deputy Director of DG Research. I'm sure it's all sweetness and light, but I imagine some nails are privately being spat in the Pauli household...