2021 OSTP Public Access Congressional Report

The 2013 OSTP Memorandum on Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research directed each Federal department and agency with more than $100 million in annual research and development (R&D) expenditures to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of Federally funded research, specifically access to scholarly publications and digital data resulting from such research. This report summarises progress made since 2013. Of the more than 20 Federal departments and agencies subject to the Memorandum, all have developed plans and implemented policies that require Federal scientists and scientists funded by the department or agency to: 1) ensure that the full text of scholarly journal articles reporting on Federally funded research is freely available to the public not more than 12 months after publication; and 2) develop data management plans for new research projects that describe how data generated as part of the research will be made maximally available to other researchers and the public in a timely manner while protecting privacy, security, and other proprietary concerns. Several agencies with annual R&D budgets below the $100 million-dollar threshold are also adopting these principles and practices in their work, resulting in the broader adoption of public access beyond what was mandated in the 2013 OSTP Memorandum.