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Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research
This memorandum requires federal agencies with over $100 million in annual extramural R&D budgets to develop a public access plan for the results of research (scientific publications and digital scientific data) directly arising from their funds.
In response, federal agencies affected by this memorandum have developed public access plans, which lay out access requirements for research they fund. It is important that researchers examine these policies and learn how to comply when preparing a proposal or manuscript and after publication.
Federal agencies affected by this memorandum include (links to agencies' public access plans):
SPARC Tool for tracking federal agency requirements for public access to research: http://datasharing.sparcopen.org/
CENDI centralized information on implementation of federal agency public access plans: https://cendi.gov/projects/Public_Access_Plans_US_Fed_Agencies.html
Plan S is a set of principles for making funded research immediately available open access. It was developed by cOAlition S, a group of research funding organizations, mainly in Europe.
In brief, Plan S states that, starting in January 2021, all scholarly publications on results from research that has been funded by public or private grants must be made openly available, through publishing in open access journals or platforms, or posting in open access repositories without an embargo.
What does this mean for you? If you receive research funding from one of the cOAlition S funders, then you will need to make your research openly available, under an open license that allows others to share and re-use your work. More information on how to comply with Plan S will be released by cOAlition S and individual funders leading up to the January 2021 state date. Contact the library if you have any questions about Plan S.