Open Access (OA) Publishing

An open-access mandate is a policy adopted by a research institution, research funder or government that requires or recommends researchers—usually university faculty or research staff and/or research grant recipients—to make their published, peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers open-access by self-archiving their final, peer-reviewed drafts in a freely accessible institutional repository or disciplinary repository ("Green OA") or by publishing them in an open-access journal (Gold OA). (borrowed from Wikipedia OA mandate).

The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memo in 2013 directing all federal agencies that provide $100 million or more in research funding to come up with plans requiring grant recipients to share the results of their research with the public. Some federal agencies have also stipulated requirements to share written research based on federally funded research. 

In August 2022, the OSTP announced that by 2026, any scientific publication that receives federal funding will need to be openly accessible on the day it's published. Agencies were directed 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." Read policy guidance FAQ's

Currently, agency policies vary, make sure to read the appropriate one in detail. A few things to consider:

• Some agencies will not provide more grant funding if you do not follow these rules.
• Some agencies will allow publication in an open-access journal in lieu of depositing your article in their specified repository, and many, if not all, will also let you include an OA journal publishing fee in your grant.
• Although most agencies require you to deposit at least the accepted manuscript (also called the final peer-reviewed article), they will also accept the final, published version.
• Some publishers will submit your article to the correct agencies. Check to see if yours offers this service.

NIH is the first to release an updated plan. Starting Jan 25, 2023, researchers are required "to submit a DMS Plan with their application for funding outlining how they will share and manage data, as well as complying with the approved plan". 

See Science.gov for links to federal agency's individual plans.

(Content on this page was borrowed from the University of Nevada, Reno Scholarly Communication and Open Access Guide by Teresa Auch Schultz which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.)

In the US, any scientific publication that receives federal funding must be made publicly accessible on the day it is published.

Agencies are updating their public access policies to make publications and research funded by taxpayers publicly accessible, without an embargo or cost, as directed by the August 2022 OSTP memo. 

Currently, agency policies vary; make sure to read the appropriate one in detail. A few things to consider:

• Some agencies will not provide more grant funding if you do not follow these rules.
• Some agencies will allow publication in an open-access journal in lieu of depositing your article in their specified repository, and many, if not all, will also let you include an OA journal publishing fee in your grant.
• Although most agencies require you to deposit at least the accepted manuscript (also called the final peer-reviewed article), they will also accept the final, published version.
• Some publishers will submit your article to the correct agencies. Check to see if yours offers this service.
  
  RESOURCES:
• See Science.gov for links to federal agency's individual plans.
• Browse the SPARC Article and Data Sharing Requirements by Federal Agency