AAUP Statement on RWA, FRPAA, and America COMPETES Act AAUP Statement on RWA, FRPAA, and America COMPETES Act AAUP Statement on RWA, FRPAA, and America COMPETES Act

"Two diametrically opposed bills have been introduced in this session of Congress seeking to address the issue of providing free public access to published articles based on research funded by federal agencies. As an association, AAUP supports neither. The first, the Research Works Act (RWA),...would prohibit any federal agency from adopting a policy that requires online distribution of private-sector research publications without the consent of the publisher, or that would require the author or publisher of such work to agree to online distribution of such work. The second, the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA),...would extend the public access policy of the National Institute of Health...to the 11 other federal agencies with extramural research budgets of $100 million or more, and it would cut the embargo period from 12 months to 6 months. AAUP supports the goal of providing free public access to the results of publicly funded research. However, we think the blanket prohibition sought by RWA goes too far. At the same time we also think the one-size-fits-all solution proposed in FRPAA is unworkable. It mistakenly assumes that no more than 6 months will be required for publishers to recover the investment they have made in preparing research works for publication, in all fields and across all disciplines...."