WMU Research Guides: Open Access Publishing: Open Access vs Public Access

Developments in US Policy

Public Access Policy

Most recent development: the Nelson Memo

On August 25, 2022, the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memorandum on Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research that will make taxpayer-funded research immediately available for the public to freely access and fully use. This new guidance calls on all federal agencies to generate policies that eliminate the current 12-month waiting period for access to the outputs of federally funded research, including articles and data.

Previous memo:

The OSTP hereby directs each Federal agency with over $100 million in annual conduct of research and development expenditures to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the Federal Government.This includes any results published in peer-reviewed scholarly publications that are based on research that directly arises from Federal funds, as defined in relevant OMB circulars (e.g., A-21and A-11". OSTP Memo Office of Science and Technology Policy Directive, 2013

Select Public Access Policies

Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research
The Full OSTP 2013 Memo supporting Public Access to all research
List of Main Agency Access Plans
NIH Public Access Policy
NSF Public Access Advice - Research.Gov
Four page handout with guidance
OSTP Issues Guidance to Make Federally Funded Research Freely Available Without Delay
Most recent OSTP memo
OSTP Responses to Public Access Policies
A crowd-sourced table summarizing the Federal public access policies resulting from the US Office of Science and Technology Policy memorandum of February 2013
ROARMAP
A searchable international registry charting the growth of open access mandates and policies adopted by universities, research institutions and research funders that require or request their researchers to provide open access to their peer-reviewed research article output by depositing it in an open access repository.