In a bold bid to avoid open-access fees, Gates foundation says grantees must post preprints | Science | AAAS

"The world’s largest philanthropy, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, last week took a radical step aimed at giving preprints—freely available draft manuscripts that have not been peer reviewed—a much more prominent role in science. Starting in 2025, the foundation will require grantees to post as preprints all manuscripts that result from research it funds. It will also stop paying for researchers to publish their papers in journals that charge a fee to make papers free....

The policy shift has drawn praise from some advocates of immediate free access to research results. But others note preprints lack peer review, and they fear that such policies, if widely adopted, could promote the spread of poor-quality research. Some journal publishers could also see revenues fall if major funders refuse to pay the hefty article-processing charges (APCs) levied by some open-access journals...."