The Chief Academic and Research Officers of 18 research universities in the US have declared their support for the Federal Research Public Access Act in a letter recently issued by the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA). The officers represent public and private institutions across 10 states. The letter is the first issued by chief academic and research officers in partnership, jointly recognising the value of greater accessibility and utility afforded by legislation for public access to federally funded research.
The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), introduced in June, is projected as a bipartisan measure to ensure online public access to the published results of research funded through 11 US agencies. The bill would require that journal articles stemming from publicly funded research be made available in an online repository no later than six months after publication.
According to GWLA, timely, barrier-free access to the results of federally funded research supports the core mission of its academic institutions. It is essential to fully utilise collective investment in science, observes the Alliance. FRPAA is expected to help maximise this investment by increasing the sharing research results, advancing the pace of discovery, and applying this knowledge for the benefit of GWLA communities.
The FRPAA bill also expands on the success of the public access policy of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the first US agency to require public access to taxpayer-funded research. More than 450,000 unique users access material from the NIH repository each day. Under the new bill, it is expected that researchers and students working in fields of equal importance – from climate change to renewable energy – will obtain same access to federally funded research to advance their critical work.
The institutions represented are members of the GWLA, a coalition of research libraries that collaborates on matters related to scholarly communication, electronic resources, cooperative collection development and digital libraries. The Alliance coordinated the release of the letter.
The GWLA represents 32 research libraries in 17 states in the Midwest and Western US. Its programme initiatives include an array of resource sharing, scholarly communication and continuing education projects.
Search for more new publishing models in K-Store
Discuss this NEWS
More News in this Theme
