Representatives of the American Physiological Society and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) have written a letter opposing legislation to expand a policy of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The legislation seeks to expand the NIH policy requiring that private-sector scientific journal articles reporting on government-funded research be made freely available on the Internet. The letter is signed by over 70 scientific and medical societies, university presses and commercial publishers.
On behalf of the many STM journal publishers and tens of thousands of their US employees, these organisations have expressed their strong opposition to a provision that is included in the omnibus appropriations bill: SEC. 524. The policy regarding public access to research results established for the NIH by section 217 of division F of Public Law 111-8 shall apply to all departments funded in this Act having more than $100,000,000 in annual expenditures for extramural research.
This provision would impose a new government mandate requiring that private-sector scientific journal articles reporting on government-funded research be made freely available on the Internet. This is expected to expand the so-called 'negative' policy in place at the NIH to other major federal agencies. Implementation of the provision will undermine private sector investments, jobs, intellectual property and US leadership in scientific research, it has been pointed out.
While government funds scientific research, non-profit and commercial journal publishers invest hundreds of millions of dollars each year in the peer review, editing and publishing of these articles. Government mandates that require these private sector publishers to make their peer-reviewed, value-added journal articles freely available on the Internet would fundamentally undermine a significant segment of the US publishing industry that employs 50,000 in the US and contributes over $10 billion annually to the nation's economy, it has been observed. For many US journal publishers, more than 50 percent of their revenue comes from overseas subscriptions, contributing to a positive balance of trade.
Publishers welcome the opportunity to work with the federal government to address public access in a meaningful way that does not jeopardise the current peer-review publishing system with all the benefits it provides to the US, the letter noted. They believe that the public access provision in the America competes legislation which received thoughtful input from many Congressional, Administrative and non-governmental entities is a better approach.
Further, the letter notes that this is a critical issue for scholarly societies and companies, and urged for the removal of the provision expanding the NIH public access policy to other federal agencies from the omnibus appropriations legislation.
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