Bill Would Require Public Access to Taxpayer-Supported Research

A bill introduced today in the U.S. House of Representatives would require federal agencies with external research budgets of $100-million or more to provide electronic access to articles based on research they help pay for. The bill, the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2012, was introduced by Mike Doyle, a Democrat of Pennsylvania. It would require free online public access to peer-reviewed manuscripts or published articles “as soon as practicable, but not later than six months after publication.” It also calls for those articles to be archived in “a stable digital repository.” Previous versions of the legislation were introduced in 2006 and 2009 but went nowhere. The 2012 bill arrives at a time when public access to taxpayer-supported research is a hot issue again. Another proposed bill, the Research Works Act, would prevent federal agencies from requiring such access.