The landscape of scientific publication is undergoing radical changes, mostly initiated by a strong push from the main research funders to demand full Open Access (OA) for all publications resulting from the research funded by their grants. A good example is the so-called Plan S, which was launched by the cOAlition S group of funders and is supported by the European Commission (EC) and the European Research Council (ERC). Plan S has become effective as of 2021. Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles, coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. This means that publishers are now moving away from the classical subscription model that has been in place until now.

Various models are applied to achieve the goal. Some countries as well as large organisations have entered into ?transformative? agreements with the major publishers; however, these agreements require complex price calculations for all participants. Another model relies on fees paid by the authors, the so-called Article Processing Charges (APCs). The American Astronomical Society (AAS) decided to use this model to transition their journals to full OA as of January 2022. Shortly after the AAS, also the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) announced their move to OA. A&A has chosen an alternative path to OA; they will adopt the Subscribe-to-Open model which relies on continued library subscriptions to achieve global read-access. At present, it is still unclear if and how the Royal Astronomical Society will transfer their flagship journal MNRAS to open access. With the move to OA, research is facing a paradigm shift in publishing. The astronomical community may only have a vague idea of the wide-ranging implications these tectonic shifts will have on the way we will publish our research, and much confusion can still be sensed when the topic is being discussed. What are green, gold and diamond open access? What is Subscribe to Open? What are transformative agreements? Which model is the best for moving to OA? Is it clear that the typical use of the arXiv e-print server, i.e., without assigning a license to the manuscript, just achieves read-access, but does not provide the usage rights which define Open Access? Finally, in an even broader context, one could ask whether the publishing landscape of the future will continue to include all present key-players, such as publishers, libraries, and editorial offices.

These questions will be addressed during this lunch session, where we will also encourage a lively discussion among all participants.

Programme

Two talks will be given, including one general presentation on OA and the publishing landscape in astronomy (given by the proposers), and another, more topical, which will be decided closer to the date of the meeting. A discussion will then follow.

Invited speakers

• Anne Ruimy (EDPS)
• Uta Grothkopf (ESO)

Scientific organisers

Henri Boffin and Uta Grothkopf, ESO, Germany

Contact

hboffin @ eso.org, Uta.Grothkopf @ eso.org