White House Directive Expands Access to Scientific Research

"The White House announced today a new directive expanding access to publicly funded scientific research, which could pave the way for scientific papers to be available on the Internet — for free. In a memo, along with an official response to a We The People online petition, John Holdren, the director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) ordered publicly-funded agencies to share their research papers, data and findings within 12 months after their publication. The directive is applicable to federal agencies that spend more than $100 million in research and development, which should cover all the major agencies like NASA, or the National Science Foundation. Supporters of the so-called Open Access movement are hailing the directive as a victory and major step forward in their long fight to make scientific research easily and freely available to the public online. 'It's not the end game by any stretch of the imagination but it really does move us forward to having people understand the importance of fast access and full reuse of articles and data that result from scientific research,' Heather Joseph, the Executive Director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), told Mashable. The directive is seen as a watershed moment after a ten-year-long campaign that has involved a considerable amount of associations and activists, including Aaron Swartz, who was accused of downloading JSTOR articles, an action that was directly influenced by the open access ethos. The supporters of the movement argue that articles and data that are the result of public money should not be behind a paywall — it's essentially, for them, akin to the public paying twice. This directive might change that. "The logic behind enhanced public access is plain. We know that scientific research supported by the Federal Government spurs scientific breakthroughs and economic advances when research results are made available to innovators," wrote Holdren in the response to the online petition. "Policies that mobilize these intellectual assets for re-use through broader access can accelerate scientific breakthroughs, increase innovation, and promote economic growth." According to Nature, the directive might increase the number of freely available article twofold. The memo comes almost a year after the online petition reached the threshold requiring the White House to respond and just a week after a bill, the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) that proposes similar policies, was introduced in Congress..."