Global Policies and the local and regional realities of open access: Plan S and Latin America

Abstract

This paper examines the tension between current global policies and the local and regional realities of open access that, while differing in their approaches, aim to open scientific knowledge. Specifically, we compare Plan S and cOAlition S, a European born policy with global aspirations, to the traditional dissemination of science of the Latin American publishing system, highlighting the disagreements that challenge regional and local communication principles, sovereignty, and horizons. In that regard, three conflicts are outlined: 1) the publishing framework developed by read and publish agreements has led to a few companies gaining central relevance and the institutionalization of article processing or publishing charges; 2) the risk of outsourcing of key research processes such as peer review, now conceptualized as a service, endangers scientific rigor, its sustainability, and its purpose; 3) the adoption of non-restrictive licenses such as CC BY allows subsequent commercialization of research results, exacerbated by strategies promoting the use of preprints under this license. We conclude that while read and publish agreements consolidated a commercial strategy under new discourses of openness, new guidelines fail to propose viable, feasible, and sustainable strategies for the academic community and, even further, divert of the central aspect of equity pursued by the discourse of Plan S and cOAlition S.