- What Is cOAlition S? (Quick Answer)
- cOAlition S vs Plan S: Why the Distinction Matters
- Origins, Governance and Membership
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Why the Distinction Matters for Compliance
- Looking Ahead: cOAlition S in 2026
What Is cOAlition S? (Quick Answer)
So, what is cOAlition S? It is an international consortium of research funding and research-performing organisations that launched on 4 September 2018 to accelerate full and immediate open access to publicly funded research. It was announced jointly by a group of national research funders, with the backing of the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC), and was co-initiated by Marc Schiltz, then President of Science Europe, and Robert-Jan Smits, at the time the European Commission’s Open Access Envoy.
cOAlition S does not itself publish research or set library policy. It is the funder-side alliance that authored, endorses and operationally enforces a single open-access policy framework known as Plan S. Understanding that split — a coalition of institutions on one side, a compliance mandate on the other — is the single most useful fact for anyone trying to interpret a funder’s open-access requirements.
cOAlition S vs Plan S: Why the Distinction Matters
The two names are often used interchangeably in casual conversation, but they refer to different things. cOAlition S is a group of organisations; Plan S is the policy those organisations agreed to implement. Confusing the two leads to real compliance errors — for example, assuming that a funder is bound by Plan S because it is described alongside cOAlition S in a news article, when in fact membership and mandate adoption are two separate steps.
| Aspect | cOAlition S | Plan S |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A consortium of funding and research-performing organisations | A policy framework of one target and ten principles |
| Launched | 4 September 2018 | 4 September 2018 (announced alongside cOAlition S) |
| Function | Governs, funds and enforces the mandate | Defines what “full and immediate open access” requires |
| Core requirement | Not applicable — the coalition is the implementing body | Publications from funded research must appear in an open-access journal, platform or repository without embargo |
| Who it binds | Member funders, who then bind their grant-holders | Researchers funded by a cOAlition S member, once that funder adopts the policy |
In short: if a researcher asks “does Plan S apply to my grant?”, the answer depends on whether their funder is a cOAlition S member and has implemented the policy in its grant conditions — not simply on whether the funder is mentioned in Plan S coverage.
Origins, Governance and Membership
cOAlition S grew out of frustration among European funders that voluntary open-access recommendations were not shifting publisher behaviour fast enough. The founding principle, published on launch day, states:
“With effect from 2021, all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.”
Membership expanded steadily after the 2018 launch. By its five-year anniversary in September 2023, cOAlition S had grown from around a dozen founding funders to a network of 28 funders spanning Europe and beyond. Notable participants and supporters over the years have included:
- UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
- Wellcome Trust (joined November 2018)
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (joined November 2018)
- Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
- Academy of Finland
- Research Council of Norway
- Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR)
- National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia (NHMRC)
Governance has not been static. The European Research Council backed cOAlition S at launch in 2018 but withdrew its formal support in July 2020, while remaining aligned with open-access goals more broadly — a reminder that “coalition member” status can change even after a funder has publicly endorsed the framework. cOAlition S’s day-to-day secretariat function has also evolved; the organisation operates under the European Science Foundation’s science-policy-support activities and has continued to update its operating structure, including a new strategy for 2026–2030 published in November 2025.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Plan S?
Plan S is the open-access policy framework created and endorsed by cOAlition S. It requires that, from 2021, all peer-reviewed publications resulting from grants awarded by a participating funder be made immediately and freely available, without embargo, in a compliant open-access journal, platform or repository.
What does the “S” in Plan S stand for?
According to Robert-Jan Smits, the plan’s chief architect, the “S” stands for “shock” — reflecting the coalition’s intent to jolt scholarly publishing into a faster transition to open access, rather than relying on the slower, voluntary approach that had dominated the previous two decades.
How many funders belong to cOAlition S?
Membership has grown considerably since 2018. cOAlition S expanded from roughly a dozen founding funders to a network of 28 funders by its five-year anniversary in September 2023, and the coalition continues to invite public and private research funders worldwide to join.
Is cOAlition S a government body?
No. cOAlition S is not a government agency; it is a voluntary alliance of research funders — national funding councils, the European Commission, and charitable foundations such as Wellcome Trust — that have agreed to coordinate their own grant conditions around a shared open-access target.
Why the Distinction Matters for Compliance
For research administrators, institutional open-access librarians and grants offices, the cOAlition S / Plan S distinction is not academic. Compliance obligations attach at the funder level, not automatically at the field or discipline level. Two practical consequences follow.
- Check the funder, not the field. A researcher can work in a Plan S-adjacent discipline and still have no Plan S obligation, because their specific funder has not joined cOAlition S or has not yet implemented the policy in its own grant terms.
- Track transitional allowances separately from the core mandate. During the transition period, Plan S permits publication in “transformative journals” — hybrid titles covered by an agreement to convert fully to open access — which sit outside the strict letter of the core principle but remain compliant under cOAlition S guidance.
Because cOAlition S retains the authority to revise implementation guidance — including its Rights Retention Strategy, which lets funded authors apply a CC BY licence to the author’s accepted manuscript regardless of a publisher’s own policy — institutions need to monitor cOAlition S announcements directly rather than relying solely on secondary summaries.
Looking Ahead: cOAlition S in 2026
Plan S is often described in retrospective terms, as though the 2021 deadline closed the story. It did not. cOAlition S published a new strategy covering 2026–2030 in November 2025, signalling continued activity around rights retention, diamond open access and equitable publishing models rather than a wind-down. For institutions still mapping which of their funders carry a live Plan S obligation, the coalition’s own organisations page remains the authoritative, continuously updated source — far more reliable than any static list, including this one.
Research administrators managing multi-funder compliance can pair that funder-by-funder check with CASRAI’s broader research administration resources for context on how open-access mandates fit within the wider compliance landscape institutions now navigate.
