Any research based on federally funded studies must be made freely available to the public without embargo under a policy announced Thursday by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The new requirement, which will take effect in late 2025, updates an existing policy that allowed for a 12-month embargo on making free research available.
White House chief of staff Alondra Nelson said in a memo to federal departments and agencies that the change was motivated by lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When research is widely available to other researchers and the public, it can save lives, provide policymakers with the tools to make critical decisions, and bring about more equitable outcomes in every sector of society,” Nelson wrote. “The American people fund tens of billions of dollars in advanced research every year. There should be no delay or obstacle between the American public and a return on their investment in research.”
Librarians, open access advocates and many scholars had long advocated the kind of change the Biden administration just made, which drew serious attention from both President Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Thursday’s announcement drew praise from many of those parties. “This update is a milestone for scholarly communications,” the Association for Research Libraries said in a statement. “This acceleration of public access to government-funded research is consistent with the research community’s growing embrace of open science practices and the need to address such global challenges as health, climate and economic inequality.”
Publishers, including many scientific associations with their salaried journals, have historically opposed government policies that eliminate embargoes, and they didn’t stop Thursday.
“Today’s announcement by OSTP regarding access policies for private sector research publications comes without formal, meaningful consultation or public input during this administration for a decision that will have far-reaching consequences, including serious economic impact,” Shelley Husband, senior vice president for government affairs at the Association of American Publishers, said in an emailed statement.
Many publishing industry experts welcomed the administration’s decision, but acknowledged the financial cost it could bring to publishers.
“Overall, this is a very important and positive development for openness, but not without secondary consequences,” said Roger Schonfeld, vice president of organizational strategy at Ithaca, a nonprofit organization focused on improving access to knowledge and education around the world. “The policy guidance provides a way to pay for dataset storage, through researcher grants, which should further stimulate the data storage ecosystem. But it is less clear how the free publishing mandate will be paid for, which may worry some scholarly publishers, especially those without a well-developed US strategy for transformative deals.”
Status Quo
Until Thursday, federal departments and agencies with more than $100 million in annual research and development spending were guided by a 2013 White House memo on providing access to government-funded research. This policy included an optional 12-month embargo on public access to publications resulting from federally funded research—a feature that presented a significant barrier to those without financial means or university library privileges.
Federal agencies with more than $100 million in annual R&D spending must develop plans within 180 days to comply with the new policy. All other federal agencies must have plans to comply within 360 days. The agencies must publish their plans, which must address scientific publications and peer-reviewed scientific data, by December 31, 2024. The memorandum also includes guidance on improving transparency on authorship, funding, affiliation and the status of research development. federally funded.
SPARC, an open access advocacy group, celebrated the news at a I tweet: “Today’s landmark policy guidance from @WHOSTP that immediately makes available US taxpayer-funded research will accelerate progress toward curing disease, preventing pandemics, mitigating climate change, and more.”
The Association of American Universities released a statement that called the news “an important step forward” for public access to scientific research. The association “has always been a strong supporter of making federally funded studies public. We were also strong supporters of the previous 12-month embargo period on making publications accessible when the policy was first announced in 2013… We are currently reviewing the announcement to determine what specific implications it has for our institutions and members. of the faculty.”
A spokesman for the American Physical Society declined to comment. But APS and other major science groups strongly opposed the Trump administration when it considered adopting a similar approach in 2019. Publishers also unsuccessfully fought a European open access initiative known as Plan S, which took effect in in 2020 and influenced scientific publishing worldwide.
David Burbach, an associate professor of national security affairs at the US Naval War College, has written on Twitter that he favors open access, but expressed concern about equality for researchers across institutions.
“This would be a huge blow to people at institutions like mine, where we generally can’t get funding for access fees,” Burbach wrote. “Perhaps with a broad government policy requirement that would change.”
The research community will work to address the new policy implications while also managing other scientific research concerns at the time.
“The White House mandate reflects on the lessons about the benefits of openness to be learned from the pandemic experience, but does not really address the lessons of how an open ecosystem can best be exploited and protected by those with an agenda. misinformation.” Schonfeld said.
