[BOAI] PRESS RELEASE: Representatives Urge White House to Support Public Access to Federally Funded Research

[Peter Suber]

[Forwarding from Matt Dinkel in the office of Rep. Mike Doyle.  --Peter
Suber.]


For Immediate Release
Contact:  202-225-2135

*Representatives Urge White House to Support Public Access to Federally
Funded Research*

This morning, Congressman Mike Doyle (D-PA) and 12 other Members of
Congress sent a letter to the Office of Science and Technology Policy
(OSTP) at the White House in support of policies promoting greater public
access to the results of federally funded research.

In the letter, Members encouraged the OSTP to implement rules that require
federal agencies to permit free access to published works funded by federal
dollars.  Such policies would “promote the broadest possible return on
taxpayer investment in academic research,” the Members wrote.

“The Internet has made access to information exponentially easier and
faster,” Congressman Doyle said. “So it’s only logical that we help our
scientists share their research as widely as possible online, to encourage
greater collaboration and innovation in the sciences. I think this is the
wave of the future and I urge the OSTP to implement public access policies
to support our nation’s leadership in the sciences.  I think keeping
taxpayer-funded research behind expensive paywalls runs counter to the
goals of encouraging continued U.S. economic competitiveness.”

The Members point out in the letter that public access policies are
“well-tested, common sense efforts that have not led to any known reports
of job losses or financial cutbacks in the publishing industry.  On the
other hand, they have received the utmost praise of innovators and
researchers whose access to that data expands the value of federal R&D
investment.”

The letter was signed by Reps. Mike Doyle, Kevin Yoder, Wm. Lacy Clay,
Henry Waxman, Michael Fitzpatrick, Zoe Lofgren, Bobby Rush, Jared Polis,
Ron Paul, Michael Capuano, Russ Carnahan, Tim Holden, and Donald Manzullo.

The text of the letter is below:

June 28, 2012

John P. Holdren
Director
Office of Science and Technology Policy
Executive Office of the President
725 17th Street Room 5228
Washington, DC 20502

Dear Dr. Holdren:

We have followed with great interest the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy’s ongoing examination of policies to promote public
access to federally funded research.  We believe that greater transparency
of taxpayer funded research is critical to ensuring continued U.S.
leadership in scientific innovation and academic research.  We also believe
that public access policies would allow students nationwide to access a
broader array of academic works through university libraries that have
suffered from reduced funding.  Accordingly, we urge the OSTP to act
quickly to make federally funded research more accessible to academics,
university students, and the American taxpayer.

We write today to emphasize the demonstrated, immediate need for public
access policies at U.S. federal agencies.  A growing number of experts
indicate that the U.S. is rapidly falling behind in global leadership in
the sciences.  Reports demonstrate that from 1996 to 2008, the United
States dropped 20 percent relative to other nations in its share of
scientific journal publications.  While we believe a continued commitment
to research and development is an important component of investment in U.S.
economic competitiveness, the added value of making research publicly
available is that it can exponentially increase collaboration and
intelligent knowledge sourcing among researchers.  Public access policies
can help to boost the value of academic works by exposing them to larger
audiences and increasing the potential for citations.

Public access policies for government-funded research have been functioning
successfully for several years outside of the U.S., at the Research
Councils United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England,
the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, as well as domestically at the
National Institutes of Health.  Public access policies for faculty research
have also been in place for years at dozens of renowned universities in the
United States, including Harvard University, Stanford University,
University of Kansas, Carnegie Mellon University, Duke University, and many
others.  Such policies are not based in avant-garde ideas.  They are
well-tested, common sense efforts that have not led to any known reports of
job losses or financial cutbacks in the publishing industry.  On the other
hand, they have received the utmost praise of innovators and researchers
whose access to that data expands the value of federal R&D investment.

Further, we believe simply that taxpayers who fund research should be able
to have access to research results.  While we value the editorial
contributions of the publishing industry in producing a final research
product, we do not support keeping publicly funded research behind
expensive paywalls that force the public to pay twice for access to
research.

Support for public access policies is widespread and growing.  As you are
likely aware, last month, a petition in support of public access policies
on the White House’s We The People website received, over the course of
less than two weeks, more than 25,000 signatures – enough to prompt White
House consideration.  In addition, public access is supported by over 130
university and college presidents and provosts, as well as libraries,
countless student organizations, renowned scientists including 52 Nobel
laureates, as well as a growing number of forward-looking university,
commercial, and nonprofit publishers.  Importantly, a recent legislative
effort aimed to limit public access policies and roll back the National
Institutes of Health’s already established PubMed Central repository met
with overwhelming public opposition and was ultimately withdrawn.

Given the critical nature of public access to encourage continued U.S.
leadership in the sciences, we urge the OSTP to direct federal agencies to
implement public access policies and promote the broadest possible return
on taxpayer investment in academic research.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,



###
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/boai-forum/attachments/20120628/08bb7160/attachment-0001.html