Open “Thank You” letter to U.S. OSTP for move to make federally funded research freely available with no delay

Last week, the United States White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) updated U.S. policy guidance to federal agencies to make the results of taxpayer-supported research immediately available to the American public at no cost.

This move will allow people like me, who fund and use research supported by federal agencies, to be able to see articles and data at the point of publication. Currently, to access these materials (legally) I have to wait 12 months for the PDF to be made available.

The Trump administration considered a similar move, but it was heavily rebuffed by all the groups who make money from keeping federally-funded research behind a paywall from people like me, such as scientific societies and independent publishers.

This move affects so many more than people like me. Perhaps most shocking to people reading this is that so many people who work and study at U.S. universities will be able to access new papers legally for the first time. Many of these institutions can’t afford subscriptions to journals, some of which are run by the very scientific societies who claim to be advancing equity in their fields. I also work with educators looking to share primary literature with students as a means to make students (often from traditionally excluded backgrounds) feel more included in science. Nothing frustrates that work more than continuing to exclude people from thee backgrounds from taxpayer-funded work.

I’ve personally been very disappointed by the pearl-clutching from many people who get NIH funding, who expect this will cost them more money. As a reminder, taxpayer funded grants are a privilege, not an entitlement, and it somewhat undermines the tune played by many at universities about what a noble and selfless enterprise university academia is, when there is outrage at having to make that work available to the very people who enable the work to take place in the first place.

It also currently does not cost a researcher anything to comply with the 12-month embargo. If all that happens is that agencies simply remove the embargo, and maintain things like the NSF Public Access Repository, or availability of a PDF on PubMed, for immediate release of a copy of the article (and underlying data), then it comes at no cost to the researcher. It may come at a cost for publishers, including scientific societies, but that is a problem for their business models, and not for the pursuant of knowledge, or the public’s access to it.

Below is a copy of the “thank you” letter I have sent to the President and to OSTP, with thanks to SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) who provided a template letter to thank OSTP for their work.

“Dear President Biden and Dr. Alondra Nelson, 

I am writing to you to pass along my most sincere gratitude and appreciation for the updated policy guidance issued by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) that will make taxpayer-funded research immediately available for the public to freely access and fully use. I enthusiastically applaud the administration for eliminating the current 12-month waiting period for access to critical research outputs — both articles and data. 

I am a small business owner and U.S. taxpayer who uses federally-funded research in my work. I constantly struggle to access the cutting-edge data and knowledge that I need - and that my tax dollars fund - due to the current barriers designed to keep me from them. 

However, I am writing not only to thank you for myself. In my work, I constantly see the barriers experienced by other groups, who will be so positively affected by this move:

• Patient advocates, trying to access the latest work to understand the current state of knowledge on their disease, are kept from understanding new directions and findings for an agonizing 12 months. 

• Educators, who work to develop science literacy and a sense of identity with the science community in K-12 students, are frustrated by the gatekeeping to prevent this population from accessing current work. 

• There are even thousands of students at U.S. institutions of higher education studying these subjects who cannot access research for their studies because their institutions cannot afford to pay the subscription costs levied by scientific societies and publishing companies. 

I could name more groups; but suffice it to say, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for what you have achieved for all these communities by ensuring more equitable access to research.

With this action, OSTP is laying the foundation for a more open and equitable system of research that will benefit people like us, our country, and the world. The result will be faster progress toward curing diseases, preventing pandemics, mitigating climate change, and addressing inequities in both the publication of and access to research.

This policy guidance is the culmination of more than 15 years of steady progress. It provides a much-needed update to strengthen U.S. policy that will bring our country to equal footing with governments across the world that have established strong open access policies to promote their national innovation agendas.

There are those who stand to lose financially from this move, and of course as you are aware there was pushback from scientific societies, publishers and even Republican Senators when the previous administration’s OSTP was considering a similar move (Science groups, senator warn Trump administration not to change publishing rules). These groups do not represent, nor seek to represent, people like me and the communities I have described above. They are prioritizing their own financial interests at our, the taxpayer’s, and frankly science’s expense. I am proud and impressed that you have sought to make this move, given the opposition and interests at stake.  

I want to thank you, wholeheartedly, for your steadfast leadership on this issue and stand ready to work with your administration to support and implement this important policy guidance. I was so overwhelmed with joy when the news was passed along to me last week. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your work.

Sincerely,

Gary McDowell, PhD

CEO of Lightoller LLC”