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Supporting Public Access to Funded Research

Key Points

Overview

In August 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memorandum directed at all federal funding agencies titled Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research (PDF; often referred to as the Nelson Memo, since it was issued by the OSTP interim director at that time, Dr. Alondra Nelson). This guidance states that all federal funding agencies are required to facilitate public access to the results of federally funded research. The OSTP defines public access as "the free availability of federally funded research materials, including data and research results, to the public."

This memo revises the OSTP recommendations from 2013 under which federal funders have been operating. The Association of Research Libraries created a helpful comparison of these new guidelines to the former ones that were issued in 2013 (PDF).

Public Access

The most notable change outlined in the 2022 memo is the requirement to provide public access to the results of federally funded research immediately, whereas the 2013 memo allowed a 1-year embargo of research articles.

To comply with federal guidance, peer-reviewed scholarly publications and the underlying scientific or supporting data that result from federally funded research must be "made freely available and publicly accessible by default in agency-designated repositories without any embargo or delay after publication." This provision is referred to as equitable access.

Following are resources to help you find a journal or publisher that allows immediate sharing of either the publisher's PDF or your accepted manuscript (i.e., after peer review but before typesetting).:

  • We recommend that researchers review the agreements Emory Libraries have with specific publishers that allow open access publishing with no author-facing fees. If you publish your work open access, it is by default immediately available to the public, and compliance with federal public access policies involves only one additional step: deposit of your article into the agency-specified repository, such as PubMed Central for NIH-funded research. Many open access publishers deposit articles on behalf of authors.
  • The National Library of Medicine provides the PubMed Central (PMC) Journal List. It includes close to 4,500 journal titles that "have an agreement with NLM to make the final published version of all their articles, or all their NIH-funded articles, available in PMC." Publishers of almost 4,000 of those titles immediately share some or all of their published articles. Important note: In its Public Access Policy FAQ, "NIH recommends reviewing the specific journal record to confirm that the Release Delay is 0 months (Immediate Release) and the Agreement Status is Active" (emphasis added).
  • Colleagues at Penn State Libraries have started a list of "publishers and/or journals [that] allow deposit of some version of the article, typically the Accepted Manuscript version, in a non-profit repository with no embargo even when the article is not available open access on the journal's website. These publishers' policies are compatible by default with federal funders' zero-embargo public access policies, such as the NIH Public Access Policy effective July 1, 2025" (emphasis added). Explore the full list.

Persistent Identifiers

In addition, the OSTP guidance includes a directive called Research Integrity. This guidance "recommends that agencies employ persistent digital identifiers to track all aspects of the research life-cycle, from awards to researchers to outputs." These identifiers tie researchers (using ORCID iDs) to their scholarly output (using DOIs) and to the agency funding their research and their own institution (using the Research Organization Registry or ROR ID).

Use of these identifiers will also make research outputs machine-readable, which enables large-scale computational analysis (e.g., text data mining). You can find more information about obtaining and using an ORCID iD in our ORCID at Emory guide. Navigate to orcid.emory.edu to connect your ORCID iD to Emory.

Timeline

Each provision of the OSTP guidance will go into effect no later than the following dates:

  • Dec. 31, 2024: Funding agencies complete and publish equitable access plans.
  • Dec. 31, 2025: Latest date that equitable access plans can go into effect. Important Note: On April 30, 2025, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya announced that the NIH Public Access Plan would be effective on July 1, 2025.
  • Dec. 31, 2026: Funding agencies complete and publish research integrity plans.
  • Dec. 31, 2027: Latest date that research integrity plans can go into effect.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. Which agencies' policies have been fully implemented?
    The National Institutes of Heath's Public Access Policy went into effect on July 1, 2025, and this funder awards the most grants to Emory by far. This NIH Public Access landing page provides helpful information as does the NIH Public Access Policy FAQ. Other agencies' policies have gone into effect, including the Department of Energy, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the CDC, and more.
  2. Do these new policies apply to funding awarded before 2023?
    No, federal funding agencies are creating and implementing their policies over several years (see the timeline above), so compliance will be required only after implementation. Important note: The NIH has stated that their Public Access Policy does not apply to grants that closed before July 1, 2025.
  3. Which agencies are making new policies that researchers will be required to follow?
    All federal funding agencies are creating new policies, even non-STEM-focused ones.
  4. What types of research outputs are included?
    Peer-reviewed publications, especially journal articles, and other outputs such as books, book chapters, conference proceedings, and more may be included in final policies. Importantly, funded researchers will also be required to share their research datasets (get Emory-specific help on data-sharing requirements).
  5. Does this policy affect my right to publish my research in the journal of my choosing, or does it limit my own rights to my research?
    In short, no. Federal funding agencies will use a preexisting license, known as the federal purpose license, which applies to all works resulting from research supported by federal funds. It is a nonexclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license that allows the government to reproduce, publish, or use work funded by government grants “for federal purposes.” For more information, please see this fact sheet from the Higher Education Leadership Initiative for Open Scholarship (HELIOS Open).  
  6. How are publishers reacting to the NIH Public Access Policy?
    Publishers reactions have varied greatly, and new information is being released frequently. Because of this rapidly shifting environment, please contact Emory Libraries Scholarly Communications Office with questions about how to comply with the NIH policy and your publisher's sharing policies. We can help you find accurate information for your particular situation.
  7. Which publishers currently allow authors to immediately share their accepted manuscript on PubMed Central without paying any fees?
    As mentioned above, check the Libraries' agreements with certain publishers that allow open access publishing with no author-facing fees as well as the PMC Journal List and make sure any journal you are considering has a Release Delay of 0 months (Immediate Release) and the Agreement Status is Active. Also, colleagues at Penn State Libraries have compiled a list of publishers that allow immediate sharing of accepted manuscripts. 

Get Help

The Scholarly Communications Office is available to assist researchers navigating regulations and policies concerning public access to scholarly publications.

If you are looking for more information about requirements to make research outputs accessible to the public, we recommend the OSTP's Frequently Asked Questions: 2022 Public Access Policy Guidance and this SPARC fact sheet on the Nelson memo.

Sources

To create this page, Emory's Scholarly Communications Office staff consulted the following sources.

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Learn More

Understanding Open Access Emory's Open Access Publishing Fund Open Publications by Emory Authors Emory's Open Access Repositories and Policy Scholarly Communications