Huge News: Biden Administration Announces All Publicly Funded Research Should Be Available For Free To The Public

Here's some amazingly good news amidst all of the nonsense of late. On Thursday, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the White House announced that they were updating policy guidance to mandate that all taxpayer-supported research should be immediately available to the public at no cost. According to the actual policy guidelines, US departments and agencies have until the end of 2025 to make this change (though, it's not clear that there's any remedy if they don't). This is really huge - and it seems to have come out of nowhere.

Long term Techdirt readers know this is an issue that we've talked about for ages. All the way back in 2008, we wrote about how research journals were locking up publicly funded research. And, that's kind of crazy, because if the public funded it, then the public should have access to it. There has been a back and forth in the government over the years, with a general movement towards making more government funded research open-access, but often after an embargo period (usually, private journals can publish it for a period of 12 months, and then it goes open).

Some in Congress (at the behest of the academic publishers) have tried to pass legislation that would go in the other direction and lock up more federally funded research.

But, with this move today, the government is going fully open. And - this part is incredibly refreshing - they talk up how this should actually lead to much greater innovation:

This policy will likely yield significant benefits on a number of key priorities for the American people, from environmental justice to cancer breakthroughs, and from game-changing clean energy technologies to protecting civil liberties in an automated world.

This is a nice rebuke for all the people who insist that locking up ideas and research is necessary for innovation. It's great to see this White House recognize otherwise.

When research is widely available to other researchers and the public, it can save lives, provide policymakers with the tools to make critical decisions, and drive more equitable outcomes across every sector of society," said Dr. Alondra Nelson, head of OSTP. The American people fund tens of billions of dollars of cutting-edge research annually. There should be no delay or barrier between the American public and the returns on their investments in research."

This is really big. And really good. And should help innovation tremendously, and provide more access to useful ideas and data that the American public has been funding.

In the actual guidance document, OSTP notes that part of the reason for this is what was learned during the early part of the COVID pandemic, when open and free access to research proved tremendous helpful:

Americans were offered a window into the great benefits of immediate public access to federally funded research at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the wake of the public health crisis, government, industry, and scientists voluntarily worked together to adopt an immediate public access policy, which yielded powerful results: research and data flowed effectively, new accessible insights super-charged the rate of discovery, and translation of science soared. The shift in practice during COVID-19 demonstrated how delivering immediate public access to federally funded research publications and data can provide near real-time returns on American taxpayer investments in science and technology. Immediate public access to COVID-19 research is a powerful case study on the benefits of delivering research results and data rapidly to the people. The insights of new and cutting-edge research stemming from the support of federal agencies should be immediately available-not3 just in moments of crisis, but in every moment. Not only to fight a pandemic, but to advance all areas of study, including urgent issues such as cancer, clean energy, economic disparities, and climate change. American investment in such research is essential to the health, economic prosperity, and well-being of the Nation. There should be no delay between taxpayers and the returns on their investments in research.

This is both unexpected and... wonderful?

Next up: hey OSTP, can we do the same for federally funded patents too?

Of course, it also wouldn't surprise me if Congress comes back with bills to lock up such research again - or a future administration flip flops on this. But... for now... good news!