In pursuit of “increasing access to federally funded research results” and ensuring “more equitable delivery” of these research results, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a memorandum on 25 August 2022, requiring federal institutions to implement the new policy guideline by the end of 2025.

Read the OSTP press release: https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/08/25/ostp-issues-guidance-to-make-federally-funded-research-freely-available-without-delay/

The U.S. government will no longer accept that taxpayer-funded research remains behind paywalls for a year or longer, as was the status quo since a memorandum was released in 2013. Moreover, the OSTP urges federal agencies to improve transparency by “clearly disclosing authorship, funding, affiliations, and the development status of federally funded research”.

Dr. Alondra Nelson, head of OSTP, stated that the “American people fund tens of billions of dollars of cutting-edge research annually. There should be no delay or barrier between the American public and the returns on their investments in research”.

The total cost of securing public access to the publicly funded research is estimated by OSTP to be less than half a percent of the overall tax funds invested in research each year, calculated on the basis of data from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Libraries at U.S. research institutions now face the task of transitioning budgets, previously allocated to paying annual subscription fees to publishers, towards funding free, immediate access to published research articles. The OSTP also anticipates a shortening of embargo periods to privately funded research papers once the policy on federally funded research is implemented by institutions and publishers.

OSTP’s new policy guidance is aligned with cOAlition S, which is supported mainly by European national funding agencies, and its call in 2018 that “no science should be locked behind paywalls”. cOAlition S took effect in 2021. However, its requirements include publishing articles with a liberal open access license, most commonly CC BY, ensuring that copyright stays with the authors, which is not a requirement according to OSTP’s memorandum. Moreover, cOAlition S’ funders will not grant funds for publication under an open access license in an otherwise subscription-based journal.

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