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Research Works Act

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Research Works Act
Great Seal of the United States
Long title"To ensure the continued publication and integrity of peer-reviewed research works by the private sector." —H.R. 3699[1]
Legislative history

The Research Works Act, 102 H.R. 3699, was a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives at the 112th United States Congress on December 16, 2011, by Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) and co-sponsored by Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY).[2] The bill contained provisions to prohibit open-access mandates for federally funded research[3] and effectively revert[4] the United States' National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy,[5] which requires taxpayer-funded research to be freely accessible online.[6] If enacted, it would have also severely restricted the sharing of scientific data.[7] The bill was referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,[8] of which Issa is the chair.[9] Similar bills were introduced in 2008[10] and 2009[11] but have not been enacted since.[1]

On February 27, 2012, Elsevier, a major publisher, announced that it was withdrawing support for the Act.[12] Later that day, Issa and Maloney issued a statement saying that they would not push for legislative action on the bill.[13]

Reception

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The bill was supported by the Association of American Publishers (AAP)[14] and the Copyright Alliance.[15]

The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition,[3] the Alliance for Taxpayer Access,[16] the American Library Association,[4] the International Society for Computational Biology,[17] the Confederation of Open Access Repositories[18] and prominent open science and open access advocates criticized the Research Works Act,[19][20][21][22] some of them urging scholarly societies to resign from the AAP because of its support for the bill.[23][24] Several AAP members, including MIT Press, Rockefeller University Press, Nature Publishing Group, American Association for the Advancement of Science stated their opposition to the bill but signaled no intention to leave the association.[25] Other AAP members stated their opposition to the bill[26] as did the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.[27] Several public health groups opposed the bill.[28]

Opponents stressed particularly the effects on public availability of biomedical research results, such as those funded by NIH grants, submitting that under the bill "taxpayers who already paid for the research would have to pay again to read the results".[29] Mike Taylor from the University of Bristol said that the bill's denial of access to scientific research would cause "preventable deaths in developing countries" and "an incalculable loss to science", and said Representatives Issa and Maloney were motivated by multiple donations they had received from the academic publisher Elsevier.[30]

An online petition – The Cost of Knowledge – inspired by British mathematician and Fields medalist Timothy Gowers to raise awareness of the bill, to call for lower prices for journals and to promote increased open access to information, was signed by more than 10,000 scholars.[31] Signatories vowed to withhold their support from Elsevier journals as editors, reviewers or authors "unless they radically change how they operate". On February 27, 2012, Elsevier announced its withdrawal of support for the bill, citing concerns from journal authors, editors, and reviewers.[32] While participants in the boycott celebrated the dropping of support for the Research Works Act,[33] Elsevier denied that their action was a result of the boycott and stated that they took this action at the request of those researchers who did not participate in the boycott.[34]

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The Research Works Act followed other attempts to challenge institutional open-access mandates in the US. On September 9, 2008, an earlier bill aimed at reversing the NIH's Public Access Policy – the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, or Conyers Bill – was introduced as 110 H. R. 6845 in the House of Representatives at the 110th United States Congress by U.S Representative John Conyers (D-MI), with three cosponsors.[35] It was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary, to which Conyers delivered an introduction on September 10, 2008.[36] After the start of the 111th United States Congress, Conyers and six-cosponsors reintroduced the bill to the House of Representatives as 111 H. R. 801 on February 3, 2009.[37] It was on the same day referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary and on March 16 to the Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy.[38]

On the other hand, the Federal Research Public Access Act proposed to expand the open public access mandate to research funded by eleven U.S. federal agencies. Originally introduced to the Senate in 2006 by John Cornyn (R-TX) with two cosponsors,[39] it was reintroduced in 2009 by Lieberman, co-sponsored by Cornyn,[40] and again in 2012.[41] These bills proposed requiring that those eleven agencies with research expenditures over $100 million create online repositories of journal articles of the research completed by that agency and make them publicly available without charge within six months after it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.[42] On February 22, 2013 the Obama administration issued a similar policy memorandum, directing Federal agencies with more than $100 million in annual research and development expenditures to develop plans to make research freely available to the public within one year of publication in most cases.[43]

Later developments

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The controversy about Research Works Act finally ended on August 25, 2022, when the US Office of Science and Technology Policy under Biden's administration issued a contractual mandate to make the all publications reporting studies funded by US Federal government freely available without delay,[44][45] thus ending over 50 years of Serials crisis albeit only for the US contributions.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Rosen, Rebecca J. (January 5, 2012). "Why Is Open-Internet Champion Darrell Issa Supporting an Attack on Open Science?". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on January 13, 2012.
  2. ^ H.R. 3699
  3. ^ a b Joseph, Heather (January 6, 2012). "Take Action: Oppose H.R. 3699, a new bill to block public access to publicly funded research". SPARC blog. Archived from the original on January 23, 2012. Retrieved January 8, 2012.
  4. ^ a b Trying to roll back the clock on Open Access statement by the American Library Association that "vehemently oppose[e]d the bill".
  5. ^ "NIH Public Access Policy Details". nih.gov. Archived from the original on 2011-11-05. Retrieved 2012-05-27.
  6. ^ Dobbs, David (January 6, 2012). "Congress Considers Paywalling Science You Already Paid For". Wired. Archived from the original on January 13, 2012.
  7. ^ Piwowar, Heather. Research Works Act Attacks Data Dissemination Too
  8. ^ "Research Works Act (2011 - H.R. 3699)". GovTrack.us.
  9. ^ "List of members elected to the standing committees of the House of Representatives on January 5, 2011". Archived from the original on October 5, 2014. Retrieved January 11, 2012.
  10. ^ Peter Suber (October 2, 2008). "A bill to overturn the NIH policy". SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Archived from the original on January 10, 2012. Retrieved January 15, 2012.
  11. ^ Peter Suber (March 2, 2009). "Re-introduction of the bill to kill the NIH policy". SPARC Open Access Newsletter. Archived from the original on January 10, 2012. Retrieved January 15, 2012.
  12. ^ "Message on the Research Works Act". www.elsevier.com.
  13. ^ Howard, Jennifer (February 27, 2012). "Legislation to Bar Public-Access Requirement on Federal Research Is Dead". Retrieved February 27, 2012.
  14. ^ Sporkin, Andi (December 23, 2011). "Publishers Applaud "Research Works Act," Bipartisan Legislation To End Government Mandates on Private-Sector Scholarly Publishing". Association of American Publishers. Archived from the original on January 8, 2012. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  15. ^ "Statement from Copyright Alliance Executive Director Sandra Aistars, Re: Introduction of H.R. 3699, the Research Works Act". Archived from the original on 2012-01-17. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
  16. ^ Joseph, Heather; McLennan, Jennifer (January 6, 2012). "Call to action: Oppose H.R. 3699, a bill to block public access to publicly funded research". Alliance for Taxpayer Access. Retrieved January 8, 2012.
  17. ^ Jacobs, Grant (January 11, 2012). "ISCB to respond to Research Works Act (HR 3699)". Code for Life. Archived from the original on February 3, 2012. Retrieved January 15, 2012.
  18. ^ Putlitz, Maxie (February 6, 2012). "Maximizing the visibility of research outputs: COAR call for action". Confederation of Open Access Repositories website. Archived from the original on February 10, 2012. Retrieved February 6, 2012.
  19. ^ Harnad, Stevan (January 7, 2012). "Research Works Act H.R.3699: The Private Publishing Tail Trying To Wag The Public Research Dog, Yet Again". Open Access Archivangelism. Retrieved January 8, 2012.
  20. ^ Eisen, Michael (January 5, 2012). "Elsevier-funded NY Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney Wants to Deny Americans Access to Taxpayer Funded Research". Archived from the original on January 9, 2012. Retrieved January 8, 2012.
  21. ^ Murray-Rust, Peter (January 6, 2012). "The Scholarly Poor could lose access to scientific research; this is serious". Retrieved January 8, 2012.
  22. ^ Peter Suber (January 6, 2012). "New bill to block open access to publicly-funded research". Archived from the original on January 18, 2012. Retrieved January 15, 2012.
  23. ^ Eisen, Michael (January 7, 2012). "Our scientific societies need to quit the Association of American Publishers". Retrieved January 8, 2012.
  24. ^ Dupuis, John (January 5, 2012). "Scholarly Societies: It's time to abandon the AAP over The Research Works Act". Confessions of a Science Librarian.
  25. ^ Richard Poynder (January 11, 2012). "MIT Press distances itself from Research Works Act". Open and Shut. Retrieved January 15, 2012.
  26. ^ "Notes on the Research Works Act". Retrieved February 7, 2012.
  27. ^ Hunter R. Rawlings III (February 6, 2012). "AAU, APLU Express Opposition to Research Works Act". Association of American Universities website. Archived from the original on July 18, 2012. Retrieved February 6, 2012.
  28. ^ Hunter R. Rawlings III (February 9, 2012). "Seven public health groups write to oppose the "Research Works Act"". Knowledge Ecology International. Archived from the original on February 10, 2012. Retrieved February 9, 2012.
  29. ^ Eisen, Michael (January 10, 2012). "Research Bought, Then Paid For". New York Times. Retrieved January 11, 2012.
  30. ^ Taylor, Mike (16 January 2011). "Academic publishers have become the enemies of science". The Guardian.
  31. ^ "The Cost of Knowledge". Retrieved 2 March 2012.
  32. ^ "Elsevier withdraws support for the Research Works Act". Elsevier. February 27, 2012. Archived from the original on February 29, 2012.
  33. ^ Doctorow, Cory (28 February 2012). "Elsevier withdraws support from Research Works Act, bill collapses". BoingBoing. Retrieved 2 March 2012.
  34. ^ Howard, Jennifer (27 February 2012). "Legislation to Bar Public-Access Requirement on Federal Research Is Dead". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 28 February 2012.
  35. ^ "Bill Text 110th Congress (2007–2008) H.R.6845.IH". The Library of Congress. Archived from the original on July 14, 2012. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  36. ^ "Speech of John Conyers in the House of Representatives, September 10, 2008". The Library of Congress. Archived from the original on June 30, 2012. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  37. ^ "Bill Text 111th Congress (2009–2010) H.R.801.IH". The Library of Congress. Archived from the original on 2015-11-05. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  38. ^ "Bill summary and status, H.R.801". The Library of Congress. Archived from the original on 2013-07-31. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  39. ^ S. 2695
  40. ^ S. 1373
  41. ^ Kaiser, Jocelyn (10 February 2012). "Lawmakers Reintroduce Public Access Bill". ScienceInsider. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved 10 February 2012.
  42. ^ "Federal Research Public Access Act 2006". Archived from the original on 2012-01-11. Retrieved 2012-01-19.
  43. ^ "White House Issues Public Access Directive". PublishersWeekly.com.
  44. ^ "OSTP Issues Guidance to Make Federally Funded Research Freely Available Without Delay".
  45. ^ "Huge News: Biden Administration Announces All Publicly Funded Research Should Be Available For Free To The Public".
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