This summer, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) published new guidelines requiring all federally funded research be made available to the public freely and immediately upon its publication. The new memo builds on a 2013 directive, which aimed to increase access to publicly funded research. When introducing the guideline change, Dr. Alondra Nelson, head of OTSP, said, “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 drive more equitable outcomes across every sector of society…”
The new OSTP memo contains three important updates:
- Removing the 12-month delay before research publications funded by the largest federal agencies become publicly available;
- Directing that both federally-funded research publications and their supporting data should be made publicly accessible at the time of publication; and
- Bringing all federal agencies into alignment with this open-access publishing policy
Agencies have until the end of 2025 to fully implement their public access and data-sharing plans.
For more information, see this fact sheet from the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).