cOAlition S is an informal alliance of organisations and institutions that fund and/or perform research activities, and that have publicly expressed their intention to work together towards the implementation of the principles of Plan S.  cOAlition S does not have any autonomous legal capacity. The individual organisations remain fully responsible for implementing their Plan S-aligned Open Access policies, as stated in the cOAlition S Terms of Reference.

The composition of the Leaders’ Group and the Executive Steering Group is available here.

The cOAlition S Office was set up in January 2020 and is hosted by the European Science Foundation (ESF) in Strasbourg, to support the work of cOAlition S.

Johan Rooryck, Professor of French Linguistics at Leiden University is the Executive Director of cOAlition S and is responsible for the representation of cOAlition S and oversees the work of the cOAlition S office. Robert Kiley, formerly Head of Open Research at the Wellcome Trust, is the Head of Strategy and is responsible for publisher relations and strategic initiatives. Nora Papp-Le Roy acts as the programme manager of the cOAlition S office at the European Science Foundation, and is responsible for implementing the cOAlition S work plan.

cOAlition S: Governance & Organisational Structure

Budget for supporting the cOAlition S Office  

ACTIVITY / SPENDING (EUR)2020 202120222023
Human resources & related 273700 427000 505674542100
Software development 334000 287400 439378388800
Communication 5250 6250 150005000
Commissioned studies  30000 34000 5639391300
Legal & administrative 13700 18750 937500
Travel001250062500
Total 665.650 773.400 1.122.6951.089.700

The cOAlition S Office staff and activities are funded by cOAlition S funders’ contributions and grants. Human resources represented 2.3 FTE in 2020, 2.8 FTE in 2021, and 3.5 FTE in 2022 and 2023, including staff and consultancy. Software development mainly covered the costs of developing the Journal Checker Tool and the Journal Comparison Service. The Commissioned studies in 2023 included the launch of the impact study of Plan S and the consultation about the “Towards responsible Publishing” proposal, as well as work on “Fairer APCs”. Travel expenses covered notably the participation of unfunded experts from the Global South in the Diamond Open Access Summit in Mexico.  More information about our activities is available in the annual report.