[BOAI] PLOS CEO takes up new position at the African Academy of Sciences

[Richard Poynder]

On December 21st, The Scientist announced that PLOS CEO Elizabeth Marincola
has taken up a new position as Senior Advisor Science Communication and
Advocacy at the African Academy of Sciences (AAS). 

 

PLOS Chief Financial Officer Richard Hewitt has, therefore, taken over as
interim CEO from January 1st. 

 

Marincola's departure comes at a time when PLOS faces growing competitive
pressure. Last September, for instance, it was reported that Nature's
megajournal Scientific Reports had overtaken PLOS' "cash cow" PLOS ONE in
terms of the number of articles published.

 

Separately Elsevier has announced (2014) that it plans to partner with a
number of African organisations, including the African Academy of Sciences,
to create a new African megajournal (modelled, presumably, on PLOS ONE). 

 

A number of questions arise:

 

1.	What, if anything, does Marincola's move tell us about PLOS and its
future? 

 

On 27th December, The Scientist published a short Q&A with Marincola. One of
the questions asked was where she saw PLOS' place in the OA publishing
marketplace. Marincola began her reply by saying:


"The first and primary mission of PLOS when it was founded was to make the
case that open-access publishing could be a sustainable business, whether in
a nonprofit environment or a for-profit environment. So the very fact we
have a lot of competition now is extremely satisfying to us and it is, in
itself, a major part of our vision. As Harold Varmus said when he cofounded
PLOS, if we could put ourselves out of business because the whole world
becomes open-access STM publishing, that would be the greatest testament to
our achievements."

 

2.	Will Marincola be helping to create Elsevier's new African
megajournal?

 

3.	How appropriate/useful is it for publishers from the Global North to
be developing scholarly communication solutions for the Global South?

 

More here: 

 

http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/promoting-open-access-in-africa.html

 

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