The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) submits this report to the Appropriations Committees of the Senate and the House in fulfillment of the requirement in the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying Division C of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (P.L. 118-42).
This report details developments in the open access publishing landscape since November 2023, including potential and anticipated impacts of the August 25, 2022 Memorandum to Executive Departments and Agencies titled, “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research” (2022 Memorandum) on federal research investments, research integrity, and the peer review process.OSTP has discussed these impacts to the greatest extent possible in the broader context of the scholarly publishing landscape, which is a rapidly evolving global enterprise of which federally funded research is a vital part.
In its 2022 Memorandum, OSTP noted that: “Financial means and privileged access must never be the pre-requisites to realizing the benefits of federally funded research that the American public deserves.” The goal of federal public access policies is therefore to ensure that federal investments unlock knowledge supported by American taxpayers so the benefits of federally supported research can benefit all of America. Through its implementation of the 2022 Memorandum, OSTP and its federal partners have continued to monitor global trends and developments in the scholarly communication landscape to ensure the health, vitality, diversity, and fairness of the research system.
This report follows OSTP’s report in November 2023 (November 2023 Report), which included an indepth financial analysis of: (1) article processing charges (APCs) and transformative agreement costs borne by federal research grantees during fiscal years 2016 to 2021; (2) an assessment of these financing mechanisms on the volume of research publications authored by scientists from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines; and (3) a discussion of additional data needed to inform a more robust understanding of the financial impacts of public access policies for scholarly publications.
This current report elaborates on:
Implementation to advance federal public access policies. Updated agency public access policies will go into effect by December 31, 2025, in accordance with the 2022 Memorandum.
Trends in scholarly publishing since the release of the November 2023 Report, including further discussion of business models to enable public access to federally funded research, as well as domestic and global developments in advancing public access to research results.
An expansion of the analysis of estimated article processing charges paid to publish federally funded research from 2016 to 2022, with further discussion of limitations associated with calculating these charges.
Efforts to advance research integrity, including through implementation of federal public access policies and open science practices.
Continuing trends in peer review as they relate to research integrity, equity, and sustainability.
Comparison of the distribution of APC rates between 2023 and 2024 for the top 100 journals for federally funded research from 2016-2021.25 Journals were separated by fully open and hybrid journals. APCs shown for 2023 were retrieved in August 2023 (used in OSTP’s November 2023 Report) and APCs for 2024 were retrieved in May 2024. These rates are likely higher than those charged from 2016-2021. Source: OSTPThe growth of transformative agreements (represented by the solid blue fill) and articles published under transformative agreements (represented by the orange line) in the United States between 2019 and 2023. Data were retrieved from Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges (ESAC) Initiative’s Market Watch in May 2024.41 Articles represented in this figure are not necessarily articles resulting from federal support. Source: OSTP
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
he White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) submits this report to the Appropriations Committees of the Senate and the House in fulfillment of the requirement in the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying Division C of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (P.L. 118-42).
