By the FRELIP Editorial Team
Plan S, advanced by the cOAlition S group of research funders, pushes for immediate open access to publicly funded research — a goal few would dispute in principle. But its mechanics raise hard questions for researchers in regions with little funder leverage. This briefing looks at Plan S from an African vantage point: what the policy actually requires, how its emphasis on certain compliance routes interacts with APC-based publishing, and why African scholars have asked that global open access policy be shaped with the Global South rather than merely applied to it. We will separate the policy’s aims from its unintended consequences and consider what equitable implementation could look like.