Public Library of Science

“Form 990 is prepared by an outside tax professional with assistance from the organization. The form is then reviewed by the CFO and members from the Audit Committee. After review and modifications where necessary, the final version of the tax return is provided to the Board of Directors. The CFO signs and files all required tax filings.”

“The General Counsel and Secretary oversees the annual conflict of interest disclosure process. A committee of the board of directors reviews all potential conflicts of interest at least annually. The CEO and all board members are required to disclose (in writing) potential conflicts and any related party affiliations. Loans between the organization and members of management and the board are strictly prohibited. The organization seeks full transparency on all relationships. Any potential conflicts (in fact or appearance) are discussed openly and resolved in accordance with the organization's policies and procedures.”

“The Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors reviews the compensation of all high-level personnel annually in accordance with IRS rules and regulations. Efforts are made to secure compensation data from industry sources in order to determine competitiveness and appropriateness of salaries and benefits. Every effort is made to ensure that the process is thorough and transparent in accordance with appropriate governance and regulatory compliance. This is performed annually and the process is managed by the HR Director. Review encompasses CEO, CFO, Executives and Key Employees.”

“PLOS makes its governing documents, conflict of interest policy, and financial statements available to the public. These documents are also posted on our website.”

“PLOS Medicine, with articles in all areas of medical science, clinical practice and health policy including a variety of study designs; PLOS Computational Biology, publishing work that furthers the understanding of living systems at all scales through the application of computational methods and PLOS Genetics, focused on original contributions in genetics and genomics that reflect the full breadth, interdisciplinary nature and impact of these fields on science and medicine, in human studies as well as research on model organisms. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, the first journal solely devoted to chronic and poverty-promoting infectious diseases affecting the world's poorest populations, publishes research on all scientific, medical, political and public health aspects of NTDs. PLOS Pathogens is the first OA journal for breakthroughs in understanding pathogens and their interactions with host organisms. In the areas of natural disasters, disease outbreaks, rare inheritable diseases and phylogenic studies, PLOS Currents provides an expedited path to publication for rapid exchange of ideas and results. Submission formats are flexible and may include single figure reports, datasets, research in progress and negative results. In 2016 PLOS handled more than 12 million article views and 2 million article downloads per month, with over 2.1 million unique visitors to The PLOS Blogs Network. It is more than article views and downloads that demonstrate the value of OA. In September, The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), publishers of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, voted to adopt the Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa (EICAT) for classifying invasive species, work originally published in PLOS Biology. Beyond conservation efforts, human health and disease initiatives benefit from OA research. The WHO Estimates of Foodborne Disease Collection reports the first estimates by the World Health Organization Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group of the incidence, mortality and disease burden caused by 31 foodborne hazards. Outcomes reported in the Collection from PLOS, WHO and F1000Research can contribute to improvements in food safety when incorporated into policy development at regional, national and international levels. From external presentation of content to internal technology innovations, PLOS milestones and achievements have impact. More rapid dissemination of research for PLOS Pathogens, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases and PLOS Computational Biology is now provided through publication of uncorrected proofsearly versions of peer-reviewed work, formatted for layout but not final publication. PLOS released to the public our journal and collections publishing platform, Ambra, under an open source license. In providing Ambra to the community, we honor our commitment to make software developed at PLOS available as open source once we are confident of the code's scalability. This follows our 2014 MIT licensing of PLOS ALMs as Lagotto. Ongoing improvements to PLOS.org, our front-facing portal, provide a web presence for information and resources including our Annual Update and Financials with easy browsing through the year's achievements, more links to quickly access key research and a selection of news interviews to hear directly from PLOS authors. PLOS continues to expand its successful Collections program to showcase articles, blogs and editorials primarily from PLOS but also OA content from the wider web. Curated PLOS Collections enhance discovery and help readers focus on the work most relevant to their own interests. From research on elephant welfare to charting the path to a dramatic reduction in the global burden of disease, over 40 new collections were launched in 2016 and countless others substantially updated with the latest research. The growing choices of PLOS ONE Editor's Picks now includes curated Autophagy, Cell Biology, Human Genetics, Molecular B”

“Increasing adoption of OA policies and practices by funders, institutions, publishers and researchers fosters an ethical and intellectual environment conducive to responsible Open Science (OS). PLOS continued participation in several key European meetings as part of the EU Commission's progressive shift towards OS, including the Dutch Presidency Conference on Open Science and call for action on OS, requiring full OA and open data by 2020. PLOS publicly released its own Open Science position, timed to coincide with October's International OAWeek, themed in 2016 as Open in Action. The position states: "Increasing adoption of OA policies and practices by funders, institutions, publishers and researchers fosters an ethical and intellectual environment conducive to responsible OS. As a leading OA publisher, PLOS pursues a publishing strategy that optimizes the openness and integrity of the publication process by aiming to ensure that research outcomes are discoverable, accessible and available for discussion and that science communication is constructive, transparent and verifiable. We strive to implement policies and innovations that promote reproducibility, credit and accountability, as these priorities support establishment of an OS culture, with open data, early sharing of work and clear contributor recognition. We see the benefit of OA content in relation to future advances in machine-readable formats and text and data mining-and the potential for OA to propel OS forward into new and exciting territory." PLOS supports institutional librarians all over the world by providing educational materials as part of its advocacy work, annually during OA Week and by request throughout the year. As a nonprofit publisher, one core objective is to provide ways to overcome unnecessary barriers to immediate availability, access and use of research, which at times may include cost. PLOS provided $2.1 million in the form of partial or full waivers to authors as part of our publication fee assistance. Though this amount appears as a contra-revenue for financial reporting purposes, this is a major program expense for PLOS which demonstrates the organization's support to science and global public community. Much of the hardship support goes to authors from low- and middle-income countries and early career scientists in upper middle- and high-income countries who have been unsuccessful in securing adequate funding support.”

“Loss on Exchange Rate -103,149.”