Federally funded studies must be freely accessible to the public, White House says

Authored by engadget.com and submitted by AdamCannon
image for Federally funded studies must be freely accessible to the public, White House says

The White House has updated its policy on federally funded research. Going forward, the results of studies funded by the government must be made public right away. Until now, researchers who receive federal funding have been allowed to publish their findings in academic journals exclusively for one year, effectively adding a paywall to their work. Agencies will need to update their policies accordingly by December 31st, 2025.

The Biden administration hopes that the move will afford more equitable access to research. "All members of the American public should be able to take part in every part of the scientific enterprise—leading, participating in, accessing and benefitting from taxpayer-funded scientific research. That is, all communities should be able to take part in America’s scientific possibilities," senior policy advisor Dr. Ryan Donohue and assistant director for open science and data policy Dr. Christopher Steven Marcum wrote in the White House's announcement.

They note that several discriminatory factors have prevented many Americans from accessing research, not least because of the paywall. The lack of adequate funding at "minority-serving colleges and institutions" and people's socio-economic statuses "have historically and systemically excluded some Americans from accessing the full benefits of scientific research," the announcement reads.

Turn on browser notifications to receive breaking news alerts from Engadget You can disable notifications at any time in your settings menu. Not now Turned on Turn on

Under the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's (OSTP) latest guidance , the administration is eliminating the option to put federally funded peer-reviewed research articles exclusively behind a paywall for 12 months. The refreshed policy builds on a 2013 memo on bolstering access to federally funded research results with a requirement to make "data published in peer-reviewed research articles immediately available upon publication." Other research data will be made available "within a reasonable timeframe."

Publicly publishing such data as soon as possible could accelerate the pace of scientific research. It may be easier for others to replicate and build on the results of studies. Still, the policy clarifies that it's important for researchers and agencies to share data responsibly to ensure privacy and security standards are upheld.

Among other things, the guidance affords researchers the ability to include the costs of publishing and sharing data in their research budget proposals. OSTP is also working with several agencies to combat funding inequities. Several agencies have programs through which they provide grants to researchers in the early stages of their careers, and bolster the "racial and gender diversity of award applicants and the scientific workforce."

Charyou-Tree on August 25th, 2022 at 21:56 UTC »

I'm a professional scientist, early in my career, a handful of published papers.

My opinion?

ITS ABOUT FREAKING TIME!

Publishers are parasites, nothing more. We do the research, peer-review each other's papers, write the papers, answer criticism. All the journals do is, well, put the papers in a journal. Which is required, absolutely required to advance your career. And the subscriptions to those journals are hundreds to thousands of dollars a month and you (or your lab) absolutely must have access to them.

They're worse than car dealerships, at least at dealerships you can buy accessories and negotiate price somewhat. Journals contribute nothing to the process except a name and a central mailing list.

winnercommawinner on August 25th, 2022 at 21:19 UTC »

This is just genuinely, purely good news. Made my whole day.

alexr_tk on August 25th, 2022 at 19:35 UTC »

This is wonderful! Nice work!

So much scientific work gets done with federal funding (from the NSF, DoD, etc) and then when it's published, so much of it goes into paywalled journals run by publishing companies that are basically just there for the rent-seeking behavior.

So... this is going to mess up their business model significantly, which is fantastic because they don't deserve to exist as a business.

And most importantly: everybody will be able to read scientific papers when they want. Things had already been moving in this direction, of course, but this is going to push it along much faster. Even in computer science, the Association for Computing Machinery has been awful about this, and now they won't be able to be \m/