The Royal Historical Society (RHS) has published its new Guidance Paper on ‘Plan S and the History Journal Landscape’ (23 October 2019).

This report is designed to assist History and broader Humanities & Social Sciences stakeholders to understand and navigate the current policy frontiers of open access publishing for peer reviewed scholarly journals.

United Kingdom Research & Innovation (UKRI), the funding body that includes the seven UK research councils as well as Research England, is due to launch two public consultations on open access publication mandates in autumn 2019 and winter 2020.  This consultation process reflects UKRI’s membership of cOAlition S, a consortium of international funders established in 2018 which has articulated a new ‘Plan S’ mandate for open access publication.

The RHS report explains what cOAlition S and Plan S are, and why they matter to Humanities and Social Science researchers, journal editors and learned societies—among other stakeholders. It may well be of interest to BERA members and authors.