1/ The new #NIH #OpenAccess policy takes effect today.
https://grants.nih.gov/policy-and-compliance/policy-topics/public-access

Here are a few notable points about the policy.

The NIH has had a mandatory OA policy since 2008. The new policy is a strengthened version that eliminates the permissible embargo. The policy now requires unembargoed or immediate OA, from the date of publication.
https://grants.nih.gov/faqs#/search/693/embargo

This strengthening was required by the #Biden-era #NelsonMemo from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (#OSTP).

Note that Trump has not revoked or weakened the Nelson Memo even though it came out of the Biden White House and uses #DEI language. Nor has he scuttled or weakened any agency policies drafted under its guidance.

That may be baffling. But part of the larger picture is that Trump's own OSTP in his first term drafted a memo similar to the Nelson Memo. It too would have strengthened the federal OA policies by eliminating the embargo.
https://slate.com/technology/2020/02/academic-publishing-market-trump-executive-order.html

There may be many reasons why he didn't sign the memo, including the fact that it wasn't finished until near the end of his term when he was caught in impeachment hearings.

#SPARC has released its own new info on the new #NIH #OpenAccess policy.
https://sparcopen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Update-to-NIH-PA-Policy-Deadline.pdf

Excerpt:

<blockquote>
● The Policy requires immediate public access to articles -- #embargoes are no longer allowed.
● NIH reiterates authors do not have to pay a fee to comply with the Policy.
● The Policy applies to manuscripts accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025. This means the Policy will apply to existing grants if an article is accepted on or after that date.
● The Policy requires that final peer-reviewed manuscripts be submitted to #PubMedCentral (#PMC) upon acceptance to be made publicly available immediately upon publication.
● The Policy requires that grantees explicitly grant the NIH the right to make the manuscript available in PMC without an embargo.
● The Policy does not explicitly grant full reuse rights of the manuscript to the public.
</blockquote>

Update. "Accelerating Access to Research Results: New Implementation Date for the 2024 #NIH Public Access Policy"
https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/accelerating-access-research-results-new-implementation-date-2024-nih-public-access-policy

"I am excited to announce that one of my first actions as NIH Director is pushing the accelerator on policies to make NIH research findings freely and quickly available to the public. The 2024 Public Access Policy, originally slated to go into effect on December 31, 2025, will now be effective as of July 1, 2025."

PS: This announcement is from the Trump-appointed NIH director, #JayBhattacharya. It's another sign that Trump has not revoked or weakened the #OSTP #NelsonMemo, despite other attacks on research, including #takedowns of #OpenAccess texts and data. At the NIH, the largest funding agency, implementation of the Nelson memo is even speeding up.

EDIT. Another NIH reaffirmation of its NelsonMemo OA policy. From Lyric Jorgenson, NIH Ass Director for Science Policy, April 30, 2025: "We revised our Public Access Policy to eliminate the embargo period so that researchers, students, and members of the public have rapid access to these findings. NIH leadership believes strongly that transparency in all we do is critical and that we should not waste a moment in fulfilling our promise to the public."
https://osp.od.nih.gov/transforming-transparency-through-policy/

Update. Bad news from the #NEH for #KnowledgeCommons (and the rest of us).
https://about.hcommons.org/2025/04/17/on-the-neh-and-our-path-forward/

"On April 2, 2025, we received notification that our NEH Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grant, awarded in 2020, was terminated effective immediately…On April 10, 2025, we received further…notification that our contract to provide the NEH’s Designated Public-Access #Repository was also being terminated…This loss is devastating…both for the financial impact it represents…but also for the unceremonious end to a goal we’d set for ourselves years ago…Not to mention the bigger picture here: that designated public-access repository is no longer needed, because it is assumed that the NEH will no longer be funding research, and thus there will be no results of research to make publicly accessible."

PS: All the agencies covered by the #OSTP #NelsonMemo must designate #OpenAccess repositories for their OA content. NEH was the only agency to designate a repo not hosted by the govt. All the other agency repos will be hosted by the govt, where they will be subject to political censorship or takedowns.

Update. The Association of American Universities (#AAU) defense of US higher ed is a bit better. It doesn't focus narrowly on the economy.
https://www.aau.edu/newsroom/press-releases/meeting-moment-facing-americas-research-universities

But it ends on a jarring note of #nationalism.

"America cannot afford to pause for one second in our race with #China and other competitor nations – nations who are doubling down on their investments in university-based research into crucial emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing."

I want US research to be #OpenAccess, and fully available to China and every other country. BTW, I want the same for Chinese research and research from every other country. Taking the nationalist argument seriously makes it an argument against OA, which also makes it an argument against current federal policy (#NelsonMemo) and against the interests of all US universities. Let's remember that science is international. Let's defend open access, not nation-limited access. And let's defend US universities because they're universities, not because they're in the US.

#Academia #Universities
@academicchatter

Update. I still don't know the full story behind the takedown of the #NelsonMemo. But here's a clue. The Dept of Defense (#DOD) continued rolling its memo-based #OpenAccess policy *after* Trump took office and *after* the memo was taken down.
https://fediscience.org/@petersuber/113964410103345053

That's a sign that agencies have not been told to stop rolling out their memo-based policy upgrades. But of course that may change.

Also note that memo is preserved in the #NationalArchives, for now, not just in the Wayback Machine.
https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Memo.pdf

(Yes, I'm aware that Trump fired Colleen Shogan, the Biden-era National Archivist.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/us/politics/trump-fires-the-nations-archivist-in-latest-round-of-personnel-purge.html

@neuralreckoning @internetarchive
Sorry if you already know this. The #NelsonMemo described #GreenOA policies. It required deposit in OA #repositories, not submission to OA #journals. Some publishers told authors that they'd have to pay #APCs to comply with the policy. But that was deception and spin. Compliance with the policy was always free of charge. When journals charge APCs to publish fed-funded research, it was to publish in those journals, not to comply with federal policy.

Update The #Trump admin has taken down the #OSTP #NelsonMemo.

It was formerly at this URL.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Memo.pdf

You can still find it in the @internetarchive #WaybackMachine, as recently as Jan 18, 2025.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250118021041/https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Memo.pdf

We can't tell yet whether it was taken down because Trump officials didn't like the #OpenAccess policies it laid out, didn't like its use of #DEI language — or both.

h/t https://fediscience.org/@jnonfiction@social.coop

The affected federal agencies have all published their plans, however, and SPARC's tracking page is pretty on top of it all https://sparcopen.org/our-work/2022-updated-ostp-policy-guidance/. Remember, don't comply in advance, folks: keep acting like day-one open access is still the plan. #scholComm #openAccess #nelsonMemo

@kdnyhan @mike
Yes. I called this #openwashing because it used the halo of openness or transparency to block regulations that would protect the environment and climate. (Medical studies on the harms of airborne pollution could not fully open their data, for reasons of medical privacy.) Here are the #OATP items I tagged with that sort of openwashing during the first #Trump administration.
https://tagteam.harvard.edu/hubs/oatp/item_search?q=(%23oa.trump+OR+%23oa.epa)+AND+%23oa.trump

But note that #Project2025 calls for both (1) this older kind of #EPA openwashing and (2) direct, unembargoed #OpenAccess (or #PublicAccess) to EPA-funded research, echoing the Biden-era #NelsonMemo. See p 439: "Add teeth to long-standing executive orders, memoranda, recommendations, and other policies to require that EPA regulations are based on transparent, reproducible science as well as that the data and publications resulting from taxpayer-funded activities are made immediately available to the public."
https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

@mike
We honestly don't know yet. On the one hand, #Trump has taken down govt science sites and datasets in his first and second terms. On the other hand, his Office of Science and Technology Policy (#OSTP) drafted an #OpenAccess policy for federal agencies much like the one later adopted by the #Biden OSTP through the #NelsonMemo. He could have stopped those OSTP efforts but he didn't. As the time came to make a decision and perhaps sign off on it, he was entangled in impeachment hearings. One way to read these conflicting trends is that he takes down science he has ideological reasons to dislike (e.g. on climate and gender) but doesn't oppose OA as such. Or, since he probably has no opinion about OA as such, the advisors he trusts might not oppose OA as such. For example, one passage in #Project2025 (p. 439) supports OA for EPA-funded research. We'll have to wait and see.

More details on both of this tension.
https://bit.ly/TrumpOA

Update. The Dept of Defense (#DOD) just released the implementation plan for its upgraded #OpenAccess policy under the Biden-era #OSTP #NelsonMemo.
https://discover.dtic.mil/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/DoD_PublicAccessPlan_Dec_2024.pdf

This is the first fed agency action of its kind since #Trump took office. Note that, so far, this work has not stopped or changed.

@lavaeolus @sparc
Got it. Just tried to help and then realized that the current policy pages are being replaced to live up to new Biden-era standards (#NelsonMemo) and respond to public comments. Those changes are improvements and not mandated by Trump officials. We should wait for the new and final policy pages to be posted before tracking them for this purpose. Sorry.

@lavaeolus
Sure. I'd start with the #OpenAccess (#PublicAccess) policies at federal research-funding agencies. #SPARC (@sparc) made this guide a few years ago and it's still useful. But SPARC will soon upgrade it (or create an alternative) to include the new policies mandated by the #OSTP #NelsonMemo.
https://researchsharing.sparcopen.org/articles/