Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Thursday, October 18, 2007

Genetic Alliance endorses OA mandate at NIH

The Genetic Alliance has released its October 17, 2007, letter to the Senate in support of an OA mandate at the NIH.  Here it is in full:

As an organization that includes more than 600 advocacy, research, and healthcare organizations that represent the interests of millions of individuals living with genetic conditions, we are writing to ask for your support to ensure that U.S. taxpayers have timely and free access to articles reporting on government-funded research. Specifically, we are interested in the inclusion of language put forth in the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations bill directing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to implement a mandatory deposit policy for all research articles stemming from NIH-funded research. There has been extensive consideration of this change in policy and we request that the language neither change nor be removed from Appropriations measures.

American taxpayers are entitled to access on the Internet to the peer-reviewed scientific articles on research funded by the U.S. government. Widespread access to the information contained in these articles is an essential, inseparable component of our nation's investment in science.

Over the more than two years since its implementation, the NIH's current voluntary policy has failed to achieve any of the agency's stated goals, attaining a deposit rate of less than 5% by individual researchers. A mandate is required to ensure that NIH is able to track its investments and corresponding results in federally funded research, have a complete archive of this research, and enhance public access to these assets.