All Federally Funded Research to be open access by 2026

[bimbi284]

www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/08/25/ostp-issues-guidance-to-make-federally-funded-research-freely-available-without-delay/

“Today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) updated U.S. policy guidance to make the results of taxpayer-supported research immediately available to the American public at no cost. In a memorandum to federal departments and agencies, Dr. Alondra Nelson, the head of OSTP, delivered guidance for agencies to update their public access policies as soon as possible to make publications and research funded by taxpayers publicly accessible, without an embargo or cost. All agencies will fully implement updated policies, including ending the optional 12-month embargo, no later than December 31, 2025.”

[aurora]

I agree with the spirit of this for sure - the public should be able to see research we pay for.

I am wondering how public-private partnerships will be affected. I'm aware of many federal grants that have most of the funding from federal sources but also have cost share from industry, and industry usually doesn't want to partner if they can't embargo for at least a short while to make sure IP they paid for via cost share can be protected. I could imagine if they are not allowed to embargo at all they might pull back from these partnerships, which might make the research-to-practice path take longer. I could see how a short embargo could still be valuable to facilitate future partnerships.

[Susie]

The interplay between this and the patent system will be interesting to see -- not just ours in the US, but worldwide.  Public disclosure starts a non-extendable 12 month clock to file a patent application in the US, while other countries offer no such grace periods.  In those jurisdictions, once it publishes, it's prior art, even as to a patent application by the authors, and for the same invention.  Mandating publication, eesh, I mean I agree with the spirit of it but the mechanics are dicey.  From a patent perspective, making existing publications available to a wider audience is totally fine (e.g. public vs. subscribers to a journal), and more generally, it's probably laudable.  But accelerating a first publication would have very real economic consequences that go well beyond the US.  That would need to be accompanied by some kind of plan to deal with the tectonic shift in the landscape for innovators.

[livinitup]

It is so nice to read a big headline like this and genuinely think that the White House administration is trying to advance science for the public benefit.

Those 4 T years really hurt my soul for a while.

[pixy0stix]

I'm concerned about having the raw research available. Peer reviewed public documents - hell yes! Unfiltered or reviewed research... eeeeehhhh... There's a lot of work and fact checking that goes on between the research and publication.

[tiki]

Aug 27, 2022 10:14:34 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I'm concerned about having the raw research available. Peer reviewed public documents - hell yes! Unfiltered or reviewed research... eeeeehhhh... There's a lot of work and fact checking that goes on between the research and publication.

In my understanding this applies to the research summary and underlying raw datasets at the point of publication, not every raw result that just came off the instrument and is years away from being interpretable. I feel like the language on whitehouse.gov supports this interpretation: 
"Strengthening the data sharing plans of the 2013 Memorandum by making data published in peer-reviewed research articles immediately available upon publication and other research data available within a reasonable timeframe."

The goal here is to disrupt the profit model of the private journals (Cell, Science, Nature, etc), which perhaps once contributed value by coordinating peer review and providing a mechanism for research to be published and distributed, but in the internet age have increasingly needed to rely on embargo and restricting access to public research as a business model. Previously even if the raw data behind a piece of publicly funded, published research was literally never released, there was basically zero consequence to either the researcher themselves or the publishing journal. 

[jinkies]

tiki is correct -they are talking about published research, not raw data.

Currently scientists can publish their research in any journal, whether that journal is subscription-based or open access.

Typically subscription based journals make all articles available for free after a year (for the first year you can only read the paper if you have a subscription or purchase the article.on an individual basis). That has historically been sufficient to satisfy the federal funding requirements to make the work publicly available.

Now it will have to be open access from the beginning.

This is essentially transferring the cost of publication from the reader (subscription based) to the author/funder (through open access Publication fees). Trust me that Elsevier is still getting their cut one way or another LOL.

Publishing non-peer reviewed work online is not part of this, but it is a thing that people do. BioRxiv is the biggest one but a lot of people make their work publicly available as a preprint prior to publication. It can be controversial because there is no vetting, but the general public doing a Google search may not realize that.

[aurora]

Aug 27, 2022 19:04:11 GMT -5 jinkies said:

tiki is correct -they are talking about published research, not raw data.

Currently scientists can publish their research in any journal, whether that journal is subscription-based or open access.

Typically subscription based journals make all articles available for free after a year (for the first year you can only read the paper if you have a subscription or purchase the article.on an individual basis). That has historically been sufficient to satisfy the federal funding requirements to make the work publicly available.

Now it will have to be open access from the beginning.

This is essentially transferring the cost of publication from the reader (subscription based) to the author/funder (through open access Publication fees). Trust me that Elsevier is still getting their cut one way or another LOL.

Publishing non-peer reviewed work online is not part of this, but it is a thing that people do. BioRxiv is the biggest one but a lot of people make their work publicly available as a preprint prior to publication. It can be controversial because there is no vetting, but the general public doing a Google search may not realize that.

I think this varies wildly by field. In mine, articles that aren't published as open access aren't free for a decade or more. Which I can agree is a problem, especially for federally-funded research.

[joy]

Aug 27, 2022 19:04:11 GMT -5 jinkies said:

tiki is correct -they are talking about published research, not raw data.

Currently scientists can publish their research in any journal, whether that journal is subscription-based or open access.

Typically subscription based journals make all articles available for free after a year (for the first year you can only read the paper if you have a subscription or purchase the article.on an individual basis). That has historically been sufficient to satisfy the federal funding requirements to make the work publicly available.

Now it will have to be open access from the beginning.

This is essentially transferring the cost of publication from the reader (subscription based) to the author/funder (through open access Publication fees). Trust me that Elsevier is still getting their cut one way or another LOL.

Publishing non-peer reviewed work online is not part of this, but it is a thing that people do. BioRxiv is the biggest one but a lot of people make their work publicly available as a preprint prior to publication. It can be controversial because there is no vetting, but the general public doing a Google search may not realize that.

Hmm. As an author, we had to pay to publish in any journal. Color figures were more than black and whites. It was a lot of decisions and the cost per image was eye-watering. I wonder if cost will go up now for authors, which has its own host of problems.

I have not heard of BioRxiv but should look it up. I’m in pharma now so not concerned about publications anymore. I see the interest and purpose in publishing non-peer reviewed work but also the pitfalls. That said, peer review is not a neutral process either. Messy all around.

[jinkies]

joy I agree, scientific publication is messy. And I say that as someone who works in it!

I work freelance on 2 different journals. One is free to publish behind the paywall, the other is $600-1000, depending on whether or not you are a member of the affiliated society. Both cost over $3000 to publish Open Access. It is best to have work freely available for all who are interested, and removes barriers to researchers in parts of the world where they may not be able to afford access. The flip side is those same researchers may not be able to afford to *publish* open access.

That is probably not relevant to this discussion though since work funded by the us government should have the funding to publish OA. But it will have to be incorporated into their budgeting.

FWIW, this policy (govt funded work required to publish open access) has been happening in Europe for about 5 years.

[joy]

eye to eye jinkies!

[pixy0stix]

Perfect. Thanks for alleviating my fears, all.