In a memo to the heads of executive departments and agencies, Alondra Nelson, deputy assistant to the president and deputy director for science and society performing the duties of director at OSTP, instructed officials to implement their public access policies by December 31, 2025, “in order to make publications and their supporting data resulting from federally funded research publicly accessible upon publication without an embargo on their free and public release.” Additionally, all supporting research data associated with the articles is directed to be made available immediately and for free. OSTP will work with federal agencies to update their public access policies and data sharing plans by mid-2023.
Although this is a directive from the U.S. government, it has a significant impact on worldwide research and gives a major boost the open science movement. Many people have weighed in on the directive. This is just a sampling; there are many more. TechDirt called it "Huge News"; The Union of Concerned Scientists issued a blog post; view from India appeared in The Wire; The STM association had a brief response; Cambridge University Libraries blogged about thoughts on the memo; the Scholarly Kitchen had a two part series, part 1 is here and part 2 is here, with opinions from its "chefs", and consultancy firm Clarke & Espito opined on the zero embargo.