Public Access Policies for Federally Funded Research

In the last two decades, the federal government has been moving increasingly in the direction of public access to taxpayer funded research. 

In August 2022, Dr. Alondra Nelson of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a memo, "Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research," which recommends that all federal agencies develop plans indicating how they will provide public access to the results of federally funded research. The memo has since been removed from the OSTP website by the Trump administration, but you can view an archived copy of the memo here. Federal agency public access plans remain in affect.

The Nelson memo applies to ALL federal agencies (regardless of research budget), it includes both peer reviewed publications and their underlying scientific data. It took affect in 2025.

The Nelson memo requires:

• Articles must be made publicly available immediately upon publication.
• Scientific data* associated with peer-reviewed publications must be made publicly available upon publication.  All data from federally funded projects should be publicly accessible as well.

*“Scientific data” include the recorded factual material commonly accepted in the scientific community as of sufficient quality to validate and replicate research findings.

"Public access" to federally funded research means that the articles and datasets are available to the taxpayer at no cost. There is a subtle difference between "public access" and the well-known phrase "open access," referring to open access journal publishing.

Open Access is a publishing model where journal articles are available to read without a paywall and are free of restrictive copyright licensing. Open access journals frequently utilize Creative Commons copyright licenses to make it easier for others to share or re-use the work.

Publishing in an open access journal is just one way to meet federal public access mandates. Another way to meet the mandate could be to deposit the accepted manuscript of a paper in a funder-specific or institutional repository, such as PubMed Central or the UTSA Runner Research Press.