OT;Congressional Panel Favors Access to Publicly Funded Research

[Guest guest]

Congressional Panel Favors Access

to Publicly Funded Research*

http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/media/release07-0628.html

Washington, D.C. – June 28, 2007 – Public access to NIH-funded

research took a major step forward this week with Senate

Appropriations Committee agreement to direct the National Institutes

of Health (NIH) to require that its funded research be made publicly

available on the Internet.

This milestone was immediately praised by the Alliance for Taxpayer

Access (ATA), a coalition of patient groups, researchers, consumers,

and libraries that has long called for such a step.

" The momentum is real and Congress understands the public's

interest, " said ph, Executive Director of SPARC (the

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, an ATA

founding member). " We congratulate Senators Tom Harkin and Arlen

Specter for their bipartisan leadership on this issue. "

" It is significant that Senate appropriators are determined to

leverage the taxpayer investment in research by ensuring it can be

broadly applied, " added ph. " Two years after the well-

intentioned voluntary NIH policy was introduced, too many

researchers, students, small businesses, and people facing diseases

still lack access to the publicly funded research they want and

need. This is a big step in the right direction. "

The Senate's 2008 appropriations bill specifically requires that NIH-

funded researchers deposit in the National Library of Medicine's

online archive an electronic copy of their peer-reviewed manuscripts

upon acceptance for publication in a journal. Articles would become

publicly available no later than 12 months after publication.

" Action by our Senators in supporting this change is especially

welcomed by the patient community, " said Colleen Zak, Executive

Director of the Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease and

Congenital Hepatic Fibrosis (ARPKD/CHF) Alliance. " Delivering on the

NIH public access policy will create anticipated opportunities for

accelerating research and finding cures. "

Under the current NIH Public Access Policy, implemented in May 2005,

investigators have deposited less than five percent of eligible

manuscripts and, although a few publishers have also deposited

articles stemming from NIH-funded research, the vast majority is not

yet publicly available.

Congress has expressed concern about the voluntary policy's failure

to meet its goals. However, this is the first time the Senate

committee has proposed legislative action to correct the situation.

The Senate measure is similar to one recently put forth by the House

of Representatives Labor/HHS Appropriations Subcommittee.

The FY08 Senate Appropriations Bill is expected to go before the

full Senate for a vote later this summer. The House Labor/HHS

Appropriations measure will be considered by the full House

Appropriations Committee in July.

Contact:

McLennan

jennifer [at] arl [dot] org

# # #

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access is a coalition of patient,

academic, research, and publishing organizations that support open

public access to the results of federally funded research. The

Alliance was formed in 2004 to urge that peer-reviewed articles

stemming from taxpayer-funded research become fully accessible and

available online at no extra cost to the American public. Details on

the ATA may be found at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org.