Senators Cornyn and Lieberman have reintroduced the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) to Congress. This Act follows in the footsteps of the NIH’s Public Access Policy by requiring journal articles supported by government research funds to become publicly accessible within 6 months of publication. (And JHU receives a lot of funding from these agencies!)
S. 1373 refers only to unclassified research. Any agency that budgets more than $100 million for research would be included. Departments that meet these criteria include:
- Agriculture
- Commerce
- Defense
- Education
- Energy
- Health & Human Services
- Homeland Security
- Transportation
FRPAA would also make research funded by NASA, the EPA, and the NSF publicly available.
For more information, see the websites of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access and SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition).