MANDATORY OPEN ACCESS

Abstract

RESEARCHERS SUPPORTED by the National Institutes of Health will be required to submit all resulting peer-reviewed articles to the agency for posting on its publicly accessible database, PubMed Central, within 12 months of publication. The change from a voluntary to a mandatory posting policy comes less than a month after legislation requiring such a revision was signed into law. The revised policy, announced on Jan. 11, applies to all articles on research funded in whole or in part by NIH and accepted for publication on or after April 7. The swiftness of NIH’s change to its policy has caught some publishers, who have expressed concern about copyright issues, off guard. “The surprise announcement by NIH of the implementation of the new mandatory public access policy is seemingly at odds with the recently implemented law that authorized the new mandate,” says Glenn S. Ruskin, director of the American Chemical Society’s Office of Legislative & Government Affairs. ...