InfoGuides: Open Access Week: Day 2: OSTP Memo

On August 25, 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memo describing new policy guidance concerning updating of public access policies for federal agencies with research and development (R&D) expenditures. Commonly referred to as the Nelson Memo, in reference to its author, Dr. Alondra Nelson, former acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Nelson memo updates OSTP’s 2013 memorandum “Increasing Access to Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research” (Holdren memo).

The 2022 OSTP memo asked that all federal agencies with R&D expenditures:

Update their public access plans to ensure peer-reviewed scholarly publications and scientific data, resulting from funded research are made freely available and publicly accessible by default in agency-designated repositories without any embargo or delay (eliminating the current 12-month embargo) after publication.
Establish transparent procedures that ensure scientific and research integrity is maintained in public access policies.

The memo specifies in detail what agencies should address in their public access plans. Some highlights include: recommending that researchers make their scientific data available in research repositories that meet “Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories for Federally Funded Research,” and that the plans will outline how federally funded scientific data will be managed and shared. It instructs the use of appropriate metadata and persistent identifiers for standardized description and identification of shared research.

What’s the Current Status?
Since the release of the Nelson Memo, agencies have been working on updating their public access plans. SPARC maintains a list of agency developments.

All agencies’ final public access policies are due by December 31, 2024, and will go into effect on December 31, 2025.