Fwd: [SPARC] Breaking News: White House OSTP Releases New Guidance on Access to Federally Funded Research

[Philip Young]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Heather Joseph <hea...@sparcopen.org>
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2022 at 12:05 PM
Subject: [SPARC] Breaking News: White House OSTP Releases New Guidance on Access to Federally Funded Research
To: SPARC Members <sparc-...@sparcopen.org>

Dear All, 

I am thrilled to be writing to share the news that this morning, the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) issued an updated memorandum, “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research.” The memo calls on federal agencies to make “articles resulting from all U.S. federally funded research freely available and publicly accessible by default in agency-designated repositories without any embargo or delay after publication.” This will, at long last, eliminate the 12-month embargo period and make articles—and the underlying data needed to validate results—openly available in machine readable formats.

As you know, we have been working closely with Congress and the Administration on the need to update the 2013 White House OSTP Memorandum on Public Access to Publicly Funded Research Results. This policy guidance is a major milestone in the collective effort that we as a community have been working toward since the start of the open access movement. SPARC has issued a press release along with a fact sheet with more information on the details of the memorandum.

Specifically, this new policy guidance: 

• Makes taxpayer-funded articles and data available immediately, at no cost to the public
• Makes taxpayer-funded research more useful and valuable
• Improves scientific research integrity
• Promotes equity in the publishing of and access to federally funded research 
• Increases transparency in taxpayer-funded research
• Extends the scope and reach of current policy
• Provides ample time for policy updates to be implemented

There are two actions that you can take that will be helpful in demonstrating wide support for the memo:

• Show support on social media, particularly on Twitter using the hashtag #OAintheUSA and thanking @WHOSTP and @WhiteHouse. You can also retweet SPARC’s announcement tweet or draft your own.
• Submit a thank you letter to the administration, either individually or, if possible, on behalf of your institution. We have created a template letter that you can customize, or feel free to draft your own. Letters should be submitted via email to Christophe...@ostp.eop.gov.

Obviously, there are a lot more details to unpack! We will provide an opportunity for SPARC members to join us for an online discussion this afternoon at 3:30pm ET / 12:30pm PT. On the call, we’ll provide an overview of today’s updated policy guidance and answer any questions you might have. Register here to receive login instructions. If you can’t join this one, don’t worry – we’ll provide additional opportunities next week!

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. Most importantly, thank you for your support, both of SPARC and as individual advocates. Your past advocacy, responses to RFIs, and the work you do on campus every day to make open research a reality played a critical role in making today’s progress possible.  This is a big day!!

All Best,

Heather

Heather Joseph

Executive Director, SPARC
1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC USA 20036
hea...@sparcopen.org

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Philip Young

Institutional Repository Manager, VTechWorks

Email: pyo...@vt.edu | Tel: 540-231-8845 | Office: Newman Library 423
Twitter: @openatvt | Blog: Open@VT | Guides: Open Access  ORCiD  Perma.cc

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