AOASG submission to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy concerning open access to U.S. federally funded peer-reviewed research

In February 2020, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on Open Science put out a Request for Information on: Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications, Data and Code Resulting From Federally Funded Research.

The call follows a series of in-person meetings that the OSTP conducted. SPARC has documented the consultation and responses here.

There has been much debate on this topic on twitter #OAintheUSA

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AOASG made a submission which is available here and below.

AOASG Response to OSTP RFI on Public Access, May 2020

The Australasian Open Access Strategy Group (AOASG) is writing to respond to the Request for Information from the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) concerning open access to U.S. federally funded peer-reviewed research.

Immediate open access to research is a global priority and the importance of ensuring such access has only been heightened in recent months as the world faces the current global health emergency.

The benefits of open access to research have now been documented repeatedly. Research that is open can be read and used more quickly and easily by other researchers. Open research can also be scrutinised more carefully by other researchers, leading to higher quality and more reproducible research. Finally, open research can be read by the general public, who are both financial contributors to and ultimate beneficiaries of research.

For more than 20 years funders, libraries, individual academics, research institutions and policy groups have proposed a range of initiatives for open access to research. Some of these initiatives are international and cross disciplinary such as Plan S; others are specific to one country or to a specific research specialisation. Though each of these initiatives have a common goal, their long-term success or not is very much dependent on whether they can garner high-level, long-term support. Furthermore, the adoption of many of these initiatives has been held back since traditional subscription-based publishers have been largely unwilling to be proactive in investing time and resources in reworking their processes to support universal open access. It is clear that without strong national mandates and leadership from countries such as the U.S., the change to open research will only happen in a piecemeal and gradual way.

In Australia and New Zealand, several groups are active advocates for national approaches to open access. The main research funders in Australia, the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), have had open access policies since 2012/13; however, these policies only require access after 12 months. There are no nationwide policies in New Zealand.

We believe that were the U.S. to adopt a policy of immediate (no embargo) open access to federally funded research, this would be a key driver in the development of similar policies globally. We would therefore very much welcome the leadership of the U.S. government in adopting such a policy.

Thank you for your consideration of this important topic. We would be happy to address any questions.