Statement on peer reviewed publications

The key principle of Plan S states that “from 2021, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms.” The Guidance document defines “scientific publications” further as “peer-reviewed scholarly publications”. In light of the accelerating development of journal-independent peer-review services, cOAlition S would like to explicitly state that ‘peer reviewed publications’ – defined here as scholarly papers that have been subject to a journal-independent standard peer review process with an implicit or explicit validation– are considered by most cOAlition S organisations to be of equivalent merit and status as peer-reviewed publications that are published in a recognised journal or on a platform.