Scientific Societies Express Concerns with Potential OSTP Mandate

A coalition of 60 scientific societies, including the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), joined forces on December 18 to share their concerns with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in response to reports that OSTP is considering an Executive Order that could jeopardize the sustainability of professional societies and the scientific and technical journals they publish.
The letter to OSTP expressed deep concern over changes being proposed to the administration’s policy on the open distribution of published journal articles containing federally funded research. If enacted, the new policy would hinder the ability of the U.S. scientific enterprise to be a global leader in driving discovery and innovation.
According to a news release from the American Chemical Society, “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 proposed changes could result in unintended consequences that undermine the global scientific leadership of the U.S.,” said Glenn S. Ruskin, vice president, ACS External Affairs & Communications. “The proposed changes could also interfere with the efforts made by publishers to responsibly and transparently move to...

Source: Public Policy Reports - December 27, 2019 Category: Biology Authors: AIBS Source Type: news