WHAT THEY ARE SAYING: White House Federally Funded Research Guidance Hailed as a Win for Innovation and Equity - The White House

"The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP) landmark policy guidance for public access to federally funded research is winning enthusiastic praise from members of Congress, federal and international health and science leaders, private sector leaders, open science advocates, academic associations, scientific journals, and researchers. The new policy guidance will make the results of taxpayer-supported research immediately available to the American public, at no cost. Citing its emphasis on equity and ensuring that people from underserved backgrounds can access taxpayer-funded research and participate in accelerating solutions, praise for President Biden’s new policy includes hailing it as “transformational” and “an enormous leap forward” for democratizing knowledge and lowering barriers to scientific results.

President Biden has called for increased public access for years, citing his longtime priority to fight cancer, and specifically articulating in 2016: “The taxpayers fund $5 billion a year in cancer research every year, but once it’s published, nearly all of that taxpayer-funded research sits behind walls. Tell me how this is moving the process along more rapidly.” The new guidance has benefited from extensive public engagement with stakeholders across the research publication ecosystem. These consultations have included large and small science and academic publishers, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, libraries and universities, scholarly societies, and members of the general public. Agencies will work with OSTP to fully implement public access policies by the end of 2025. See below for what they’re saying:  ..."