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A Look Back at Open Access Week 2020

Open Access Week returned this year, bringing back themes of equity and inclusivity to the forefront of the community once again, as it has done in the past. 

This OA week PLOS coordinated and participated in a mix of activities to illustrate the positive impacts Open Access can have on the scientific community and explored strategies to ensure that Open Access truly is open for everyone.

Open Access Week 2020 with the Drexel Libraries

On October 20, Emily Chenette, PLOS ONE’s Editor-in-Chief was a virtual speaker at Drexel Libraries’, How Open Access Supports ‘Good Science’. In this session, Emily explored questions such as: what comes to mind when you think about good science? Is it reproducible? Impactful? Accessible? 

The discussion delved into what we mean when we talk about good science, and how Open Access supports the practice and publication of it. She also discussed the steps PLOS takes to ensure that published papers are open and accessible, reproducible, conducted ethically, and contribute to the base of academic knowledge.


Voices and opinions of OA advocates

Throughout this year’s OA Week we saw a great number of people stand up and take part in a collection of online activities to share their thoughts in support of Open Access publishing.

One of the great things about OA Week is hearing from the community with their thoughts and opinions on what matters to them most. A lot of those people took part in our daily polls: 

What is the most important reason to publish #OpenAccess? 


People also tweeted their support and promoted the many benefits of OA, from international collaboration to the advantages of Open Data.

Visit our site to learn more about Openness and find out how you can benefit from OA and help drive science forward.


Building Equity and Inclusivity in Science

This OA Week we took the time to reflect on the importance of research accessibility and the many benefits of Open Access in our blog post, Open Access Week 2020: Building Equity and Inclusivity in Science. Don’t miss it! 

PLOS’ entire ethos is built on the idea of research being open to a global community, however, we know there’s still plenty of work for us to do to make things better for researchers across the world. In this post we highlight the benefits of OA and what PLOS can do to make our journals more inclusive, equitable and diverse for the scientific community as a whole.

Read more on our plans for a more inclusive future.

What’s next?


We will continue to make PLOS an increasingly more inclusive, transparent and diverse platform for researchers across the globe to showcase their crucial findings. A part of this work has already started as we aim to bridge the gap between researchers and Open Access with the introduction of our Community Action Publishing initiative and our institutional partnerships. Together with our latest message on price transparency we hope our latest opportunities and resources will help researchers open their research and trust in science. 

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