Plan S, initiated by the Open Access Envoy of the European Commission and further developed by the President of Science Europe and by a group of Heads of national funding organizations, was launched in September 2018 with the goal of achieving full and immediate open access to publications. COAlition S comprises a group of research funders that has committed to implementing Plan S, and aims to accelerate the transition to a scholarly publishing system characterized by immediate and free online access to scholarly publications.To date, the list of funders that support COAlition S includes WHO and Wellcome Trust.

There are three main routes to Plan S compliance:

• Publication in fully open access journals or platforms
• Deposit of Versions of Record (VoR) or Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) in open access repositories without embargo and licensed with CC BY or CC BY SA (or CC BY SA ND on a case by case basis) . This is possible under the Plan S Rights Retention Strategy.
• Publication in ‘hybrid’ journals (i.e. open access within a subscription journal) only under transformative agreements.