Societies oppose administration’s changes to open access policy

ASA, CSSA, and SSSA, as part of a coalition of 60 scientific societies, issued a letter expressing deep concern over changes proposed to the administration’s policy governing the open distribution of published journal articles containing federally funded research. Under the current policy, free and open distribution of journal articles containing work resulting from U.S. federally funded research is subject to a 12-month embargo. Under the proposed change, this embargo period would be removed, and the journal articles would need to be made freely available upon publishing. The letter outlines the unintended consequences that could result from the proposed change.