“NSF’s updated public access plan integrates new agency guidance issued by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in August of 2022. This guidance, which includes zero-embargo public access for research publications and their supporting data, was developed with leadership from the National Science and Technology Council Subcommittee on Open Science, in which NSF has always been actively engaged. NSF developed its plan while considering issues of importance to our many partners across academia and industry, and in alignment with all other U.S. agencies which fund scientific research. This plan is a first step, and we look forward to its further evolution as we address changes in technology and in the needs of members across our communities. Promoting immediate public access to federally funded research results and data is a critically important aspect of achieving the NSF mission of promoting the progress of science, securing the national defense, and advancing the national health, prosperity, and welfare. Indeed, scientific openness, academic freedom, scientific integrity, equity in science, and fairness are American values that rest on the pillar of public access to federally funded research and data….
The sections of this plan describe how NSF will ensure: • That all peer-reviewed scholarly publications resulting from NSF-funded research will be made freely available and publicly accessible by default in the NSF Public Access Repository, or NSF-PAR, without embargo or delay. • That scientific data associated with peer-reviewed publications resulting from NSF awards will be made available in appropriate scientific disciplinary repositories. • That exceptions to the data-sharing requirements will be made based on legal, privacy, ethical, intellectual property and national security considerations. • That persistent identifiers, or PIDs, and other critical metadata associated with peer-reviewed publications and data resulting from NSF-funded research will be collected and made publicly available in NSF-PAR. • That the agency coordinates with other federal funders of scientific research in implementing new public access requirements….
Primary areas of interest that will shape NSF policy as implementation approaches are formulated include: • Minimizing the equity impact of over-reliance on article processing charges, or APCs, also known as the “Gold Open Access” publication model, including inequity for fields, organizations or researchers lacking access to funding; consequences of possible citation bias; the impact on ability to fund research and training activities; and potential negative impacts with respect to public trust. • Promoting use of author’s accepted manuscripts, or AAMs, as a no-cost option to comply with public access requirements. • Minimizing the consequences of changing publishing ecosystems, including impacts for organizations least able to weather dramatic changes to subscription policies, which can increase precarity for those affiliated with these organizations. • Ameliorating the possible impacts of large APCs on small awards. • Involving affected communities regarding issues associated with data collection, data governance, verifying permitted data access, and data destruction, particularly for groups that have previously suffered from the appropriation or misuse of data. 19 • Ensure accessibility of data and results, including access to data cyberinfrastructures for under-resourced and underserved institutions/researchers, as well as considerations for persons with visual disabilities. 20 • Maximizing the reach and impact of U.S. research while seeking to minimize both access barriers in underresourced and underserved communities and challenges related to the language or interpretability of data. • Identifying the full range of costs (tangible and intangible) associated with data provision and addressing any inequities introduced by these costs. • Developing processes for addressing inequities identified in sharing and accessing research findings….”
