The Association of American University Presses does not support the proposed Research Works Act, the group said in a statement released Tuesday. But it also does not support an opposing bill, the Federal Research Public Access Act, which would require public access to the results of federally financed research no later than six months after publication. The other bill would prevent federal agencies from imposing such mandates.
Both bills would “short circuit the process of creating appropriate and sustainable public access policy currently being undertaken by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, as mandated by current law, the America COMPETES Act,” the group said. “AAUP supports the COMPETES process, and is hopeful that a better and more informed policy will result that will help to best disseminate the fruits of publicly funded research.”
The Research Works Act has come under heavy fire from open-access advocates and from some scholarly associations and publishers. The Association of American Publishers supports it. Several members of the university-press group, including the MIT Press, have spoken out against the bill.
The press association “supports the goal of providing free public access to the results of publicly funded research,” the statement said. “However, we think the blanket prohibition sought by RWA goes too far. At the same time we also think the one-size-fits-all solution proposed in FRPPA is unworkable. It mistakenly assumes that no more than six months will be required for publishers to recover the investment they have made in preparing research works for publication, in all fields and across all disciplines.”
