PLOS Wins Innovation in Publishing Award

We don’t often toot our horn at PLOS, but we’d be remiss not to acknowledge the wonderful work our institutional partnership team has done in changing the scholarly landscape with respect to how papers are paid for. The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) honored PLOS’ work at the ALPSP annual meeting last week. The PLOS team was named co-winners for Innovation in Publishing 2021. PLOS shares this honor with Mindscape Commons by Coherent Digital, which is the first and largest collection of Virtual Reality (VR) video content for teaching and learning in mental health.

PLOS journals are underpinned by our existing, and new, institutional business models that move beyond the Article Processing Charge (APC) to ensure more equitable and regionally appropriate ways to support Open Access publishing. PLOS’ institutional models are Community Action Publishing (CAP), Flat Fee agreement, and the Global Equity model.  The award was specifically for Community Action Publishing, a non-APC based model that uses collective action by institutions to pay for publication fees.

“Community and partnerships are built on trust and we’re so grateful to our current and future library partners for the trust and openness they’ve brought to developing this model,” said Sara Rouhi, Director of Strategic Partnerships for PLOS. “This award would also not have been possible without the amazing collaboration of our team and Raym Crow at the Chain Bridge Group, who specializes in Open Access business models.”

Sara Rouhi, Director, Strategic Partnerships, PLOS

Georgie Field, Associate Publisher, PLOS

Andy Utterback, Business Development & Sales Support Manager, PLOS