Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Thursday, April 06, 2006

One step closer to a mandate at the NIH

NIH Director Elias Zerhouni testified today before the NIH-appropriating subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. Rep. Ernest Istook (R-OK) asked him a question about the low compliance rate for the NIH public-access policy. According to an observer present for the testimony, the dialog went something like this (not an official or even unofficial transcript):

Rep. Istook asked Dr. Zerhouni about the NIH public access policy, saying that the report indicates that there are “still problems with the policy as most research is not being made available.” He asked “what do we need to do to stimulate the public access policy?”

In response, Dr. Zerhouni reviewed the policy goals and conceded that “it seems the voluntary policy is just not enough” and that he will have to review the recommendations of the NLM Board of Regents. However, he said the 6 to 12 months is “a different issue” about the economic viability of publishing and peer review. He called this “the sweet spot” and said “I don't think we should do anything at the expense of peer review.”

Comment. Remember that the NLM Board of Regents recommended a mandate as the solution to the problem of low compliance.

There are two pieces of good news here. (1) Dr. Zerhouni thinks a mandate may be necessary and, contrary to appearances, even easier to adopt than a shorter embargo. (2) There's good evidence that the "sweet spot" for biomedical journals is considerably shorter than six months (more on this later), giving us a fair chance to answer his doubts.

I'll blog the official transcript of this dialog as soon as I can in order to confirm the accuracy of this account.