cOAlition S did not make full open access a reality by its original 2020 deadline: the target date slipped to 1 January 2021, and universal compliance was never achieved. But six years on, funder-mandated open access rose to roughly 80% among cOAlition S members against a ~60% global average, and the coalition’s November 2025 strategy for 2026-2030 now formally retires the transitional tools — transformative agreements — that got it there.
Coalition S making open access a reality by 2020 was the literal title of the press release that launched cOAlition S on 4 September 2018. Plan S is the funder-led policy framework, built around ten principles, that requires publications from participating funders to appear immediately in compliant open access venues. This article measures that founding pledge against the evidence cOAlition S itself has since published, including its 2023 Annual Review and its 2026-2030 Strategy.
- What did cOAlition S actually pledge in 2018?
- What has Plan S delivered since then?
- Where did the 2020 promise fall short?
- How does the 2026-2030 strategy change course?
- Common questions about Plan S’s track record
- What this means for funders, institutions and publishers
- The verdict: catalyst, not completed reality
What did cOAlition S actually pledge in 2018?
cOAlition S launched on 4 September 2018 as a consortium of national research funders, backed by the European Commission and the European Research Council, built around Plan S. The founding press release stated the commitment without qualification: “By 2020 scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants provided by participating national and European research councils and funding bodies, must be published in compliant Open Access Journals or on compliant Open Access Platforms.”
That single sentence became the coalition’s defining test. It set an absolute deadline, a binary compliance standard, and no allowance for a phased transition. Eleven national funders signed at launch; the coalition’s own 2026-2030 strategy document now describes the founding cohort as twelve organisations, reflecting late additions before the ink dried.
What has Plan S delivered since 2018?
Plan S delivered a measurable, sustained rise in open access output among its funders, and it forced publishers to the negotiating table. It did not deliver the literal 2020 deadline, which the coalition itself extended by a year.
According to cOAlition S’s Annual Review 2023, funders in the coalition have consistently maintained open access rates of approximately 80% for their supported research, compared with a global average of around 60%. An independent assessment, Galvanising the open access community: A study on the impact of Plan S (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.13738479), credits cOAlition S with raising the profile of open access globally and pulling major publishers into transformative agreement negotiations they had previously resisted.
Membership also grew far beyond the original European core. The coalition now counts 28 funders, spanning organisations in Europe, North America, Jordan, Zambia, South Africa and Australia, according to the cOAlition S Strategy 2026-2030 document.
Where did the 2020 promise fall short?
The 2020 deadline itself was the first casualty. Following sustained feedback from researchers and publishers, cOAlition S pushed implementation back to 1 January 2021, a full year after the date named in the founding pledge.
Beyond timing, the mechanism used to hit the target created new problems. Plan S leaned heavily on Article Processing Charges and “read and publish” transformative agreements — deals in which institutions redirected subscription spending into publishing fees. This accelerated compliance but shifted cost from readers to authors, disadvantaging researchers at less-resourced institutions and smaller, society-run journals unable to negotiate comparable deals.
- The original 1 January 2020 compliance date was never met as stated; it moved to 1 January 2021.
- Compliance was achieved through paid publishing routes (APCs, transformative agreements) rather than the fee-free access the founding rhetoric implied.
- cOAlition S formally ended financial support for transformative agreements and transformative journals from 31 December 2024, acknowledging the model’s limits.
- Equity across regions and institution types remained unresolved, a gap the coalition’s own 2026-2030 strategy names directly.
How does the 2026-2030 strategy change course?
The cOAlition S Strategy 2026-2030, published 12 November 2025, is the coalition’s own evidence-based reckoning with the 2018 pledge. It does not claim victory; it explicitly reframes the goal around sustainability and equity rather than a single compliance date.
The strategy sets three priorities, phased across an initial 2026-2027 period and a subsequent 2028-2030 period subject to review by the Leaders Group.
| Dimension | 2018 founding pledge | 2026-2030 strategy position |
|---|---|---|
| Deadline | 1 January 2020, unconditional | No fixed date; phased two-stage implementation to 2030 |
| Membership | 11-12 national funders plus EC/ERC support | 28 funders across six regions |
| Primary route | Compliant OA journals/platforms, APC-driven | Diamond OA, Publish-Review-Curate models, preprints |
| Transformative agreements | Actively funded as a transition tool | Funding ended 31 December 2024 |
| Measured outcome | Aspirational 100% compliance | ~80% OA rate reported (2023 Annual Review) vs ~60% global average |
Science magazine characterised the new strategy as retreating from “strict requirements,” favouring alternatives to paywalled journals without an expressed goal of supplanting them entirely — a materially softer posture than the 2018 launch language.
Common questions about Plan S’s track record
Did Plan S achieve open access by 2020?
No. cOAlition S extended its own deadline to 1 January 2021 after publisher and researcher feedback, and universal compliance was never reached. What Plan S did achieve was a sustained ~80% open access rate among its funders by 2023 — well above the global average, but short of the “full and immediate” pledge for all funded output.
What happened to transformative agreements?
cOAlition S stopped financially supporting transformative agreements and transformative journals from 31 December 2024. The 2026-2030 strategy redirects funder support toward diamond open access, Publish-Review-Curate models and preprints, treating transformative agreements as a transitional tool that had run its course rather than a permanent solution.
How many funders belong to cOAlition S today?
cOAlition S has grown from an initial 11-12 national funders in 2018 to 28 member organisations by 2025, now spanning funders in Europe, North America, Jordan, Zambia, South Africa and Australia, according to the coalition’s own 2026-2030 strategy document.
What this means for funders, institutions and publishers
Research funders modelling future open access mandates should treat the 2018-2020 episode as a case study in the gap between a compliance deadline and compliance reality. A hard date without an equity mechanism generates rapid but uneven adoption, concentrated among well-resourced institutions able to pay APCs.
Institutions and research administration offices tracking funder mandates should note that transformative agreements are no longer a durable compliance route beyond 2024; budget planning should shift toward diamond and non-APC venues the 2026-2030 strategy now prioritises. Publishers, particularly smaller and society-run titles, gain a longer runway under the phased 2026-2027 and 2028-2030 structure than the original single-date ultimatum allowed.
The verdict: catalyst, not completed reality
cOAlition S’s 2018 pledge to make open access “a reality by 2020” was not literally kept. The deadline moved, the mechanism proved inequitable, and the coalition has now formally abandoned the tool that carried it furthest. What the pledge did deliver was momentum: an ~80% funder-level open access rate, a fourfold growth in membership, and a global policy conversation that persists into the 2026-2030 strategy. Judged as a compliance deadline, Plan S fell short. Judged as a catalyst for structural change in scholarly publishing, its six-year record is substantial, and its authors now say so themselves.
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