The Hidden Inequities in OSTP’s New Guidance | Kent Anderson | 8 Sept 2022

"...In the end, I think the OSTP policy guidance is a gimmick and not a positive structural step to help scientists or science. There isn’t any word about solving the career suicide pact most STEM trainees enter into when agreeing to pursue a PhD. There isn’t anything about ensuring rigor in results reporting, or efforts to blunt or undo misinformation around scientific findings. There isn’t a word about giving whistleblowers more protections to ensure that labs don’t cheat, or about increasing the penalties under the law if governmental information is removed from public view by partisan hacks (an imminent threat given the rise of certain political personalities). There is no increased demand for universities to aggressively pursue claims of research fraud, or new regulations around research misconduct....The direction OSTP is headed smacks of the same kind of techno-utopian initiatives and mindsets that have confused and exhausted researchers and the public over the past decade. And the Senate-approved Director of the OSTP, when she takes over, may not be pleased with this particular basket of controversies and costs being left to her by the current acting head of the agency. In the end, the new OSTP guidance will give bigger publishers more leverage and better margins — most of whom are not based in the US...."