Plan S is an initiative for Open Access publishing launched in September 2018. It was put forward by an international consortium of research funders called cOAlition S. Plan S requires that from 2021 scientific publications from research supported by participating funders must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms. The principles and implementation guidelines have been clearly stated and many funding agencies and organizations have endorsed the principles.

While a global transition to Open Access is within reach, concerns have arisen over the stability of the publishing landscape on one hand and that of the global research system on the other. Some concerns include researcher evaluation, tenure and promotion; the pressure on learned societies, which often rely on publishing revenues for their activities; and the pressure on small publishers, society publishers and Open Access publishers who do not benefit from negotiated “Publish and Read” deals.

The 2nd Basel Sustainable Publishing Forum (BSPF) will be held in Basel, 26–27 October 2020. The aim of the forum is to offer a platform for open and constructive conversation between researchers, learned societies, university librarians, funding agencies, scholarly publishers, publishing platforms, and other concerned stakeholders (professional associations, etc.) to identify implementable solutions for a sustainable global transition to open access. A main topic of discussion of BSPF2 will be the challenges facing learned societies in this transition to Open Access, but the conference will also cover a broad array of topics relevant to these challenges, like the development of alternative metrics, the evaluation and promotion of researchers, the OA price transparency, the current situation and limitations of transformative agreements, copyright, etc.

This will be a unique opportunity to work together towards sustainable solutions for a successful global transition to open access.

We would like to invite all relevant stakeholders, especially the research community and representatives of learned societies, to join us and participate by sharing their experience, views, opinions, or results, and, to submit a proposal in response to one of the calls.

The University of Basel and MDPI look forward to welcoming you to Basel!