New public access policies for academic publishing are coming for all who receive federal funding, and will require additional steps to ensure compliance

The policies, which will be rolled out by federal granting agencies over the next 22 months, are a result of the Nelson Memorandum, a series of guidelines issued by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in August 2022. 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.”

To help CU Boulder researchers navigate these changes, the University Libraries, the Boulder Faculty Assembly (BFA) and the Research & Innovation Office (RIO) are partnering to offer Listening & Feedback Sessions so the research community can learn more about how this may impact research grants in their fields and what support is available on campus, and can share their concerns. The next two listening sessions are on Friday, February 17, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. and Thursday, March 9, 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

“The Nelson Memo is a positive development that will promote information sharing throughout the global research community,’’ said Massimo Ruzzene, acting vice chancellor for research and innovation and dean of the institutes, who is attending the listening sessions. “It promises change and I am encouraging our research community to continue to monitor the situation so we are prepared for any new requirements for publishing papers or data. There will be additional work here for us.” 

While details about individual federal agency policies are yet to be determined, compliance with the new guidelines will require:

• Immediate access to federally funded research articles with no embargo. Previous guidance recommended a 12-month post-publication embargo.

• Immediate public access to scientific data. Data was not included in the previous recommendations.

• All U.S. federal agencies to be included in the new guidance. Previous guidance only applied to agencies with annual R&D budgets over $100 million.

• New provisions for improving scientific research integrity, such as appropriate metadata and persistent identifiers, and for reducing inequities in publishing and access among underserved populations and early career researchers.

Research funded by agencies that have existing public access policies or data sharing policies will continue to be subject to existing policy until further notice.

Melissa Cantrell, scholarly communications librarian and interim lead for Data and Scholarly Communication Services in the University Libraries, advises researchers who may be impacted by new guidelines for publishing to seek consultations with the Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship (CRDDS), a collaboration between the University Libraries and Research Computing. 

“CRDDS provides support for researchers at every stage in the research lifecycle through grant support, collaboration on digital scholarship, research data infrastructure, support for open research publishing and more,” Cantrell said. “We can help researchers start planning now for how they are going to manage the coming changes as the policies are rolled out.”

In addition to immediate public access to the peer-reviewed scholarly publications funded by grants as well as to the underlying research data, the memo also cites peer-reviewed book chapters, editorials and conference proceedings as being subject to its provisions.

“The University Libraries and CRDDS are ready to help researchers with everything from understanding the emerging guidelines to accessing our institutional repository for open access publishing and developing data management plans,’’ said Robert H. McDonald, dean of the University Libraries and senior vice provost for Online Education. “We can also assist researchers in providing feedback and advocacy to federal granting agencies. We are here to support the research community to navigate a change that promises to accelerate the sharing of new knowledge across the federally funded research landscape. That is a wonderful thing.”