Publishers say that the bold open-access initiative rules out proven ways of opening up the literature

Highly selective journals, in particular, argued that they have high internal costs that couldn’t reasonably be recouped in a fully open-access model, and that cutting costs would risk reducing journals’ quality. Some publishing companies also urged the initiative to reconsider its policy on hybrid journals.

But their arguments have been rebuffed by Robert-Jan Smits, the European Commission’s open-access envoy and architect of Plan S, to which 18 research funders have so far signed up.

From High-profile subscription journals critique Plan S