Authors Alliance submitted a comment to the Office of Science and Technology Policy urging the adoption of a federal policy that would make the results of all federally funded research immediately available for the public to freely access and use. Removing price and permission barriers is consistent with most scientific authors’ wishes; supports learning, teaching, research, and practice; and creates a more hospitable environment for scientific advancement.

Our comment recommends:

• That the results of all federally funded research be made immediately available, with a zero-embargo policy. The current 12-month embargo period allows for an unnecessary delay that hinders the progress of knowledge.

• That scholarly publications resulting from federally funded research be made publicly available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. Licensing scholarly publications under a CC-BY license removes permission barriers that could otherwise prevent other researchers and the general public from fully accessing, sharing, and reusing scholarly publications.

• That data resulting from federally funded research be made available and dedicated to the public domain using a CC0 license. When data are readily available in the public domain, other researchers and the general public are able to validate, replicate, and build on previous research.

Read the full text of the comment here.

Authors Alliance is grateful to student attorney Kennedy Smith and Professor Blake Reid of the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic (TLPC) at Colorado Law for their assistance drafting this comment.