No turning back on global open access

On 25 August 2022, the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the US White House issued guidance requiring, from 2026, immediate public access to federally funded research publications and the data behind them.1 This is the probably the most consequential in a trajectory of open access policies that have been building pressure for wholesale change. In 2013 President Barack Obama’s office issued guidance requiring public access to research funded by the largest agencies, although he allowed a 12 month embargo—a reflection of concerted lobbying by publishers in the US.2 In 2016, while vice president, Joe Biden acknowledged the limitations of that guidance when discussing access to research in his cancer moonshot initiative: “Tell me how [publisher paywalls are] moving the process along more rapidly.”3In 2018 the policy initiative passed to Europe, when a group of funders (Coalition S) announced Plan S, requiring immediate and full open access to their…
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