In August 2022, the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memorandum on Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research calling on federal 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".
- The goal of the memo is to provide free, immediate (without embargo), and equitable access to research that is federally funded.
- Applies to all federal agencies, including those that fund Humanities and Social Sciences research.
- Applies to both peer reviewed publications and the underlying scientific data.
More on the Policies
The updated policy guidance eliminates the current 12-month embargo period and makes articles and the underlying data needed to validate their results available in machine-readable formats. The memorandum also contains key provisions that aim to promote equity in the publishing of and access to federally funded research as well as to improve scientific research integrity. The memorandum applies to all U.S. federal agencies with R&D expenditures.