OSTP Issues Guidance to Make Federally Funded Research Freely Available Without Delay

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has confirmed that, as of January 1, 2026, all federal agencies have fully implemented updated public access policies making the results of taxpayer-funded research freely available to the American public without cost or delay. This milestone follows the 2022 memorandum issued by then-OSTP Director Dr. Alondra Nelson, which directed agencies to update their public access policies and end the optional 12-month embargo on publications.

The policy is already yielding significant benefits across key priorities — from environmental justice to cancer breakthroughs, from game-changing clean energy technologies to protecting civil liberties in an automated world.

Back in 2016, speaking to the American Association for Cancer Research, then-Vice President Joe Biden highlighted the problem this policy addresses: "Right now, you work for years to come up with a significant breakthrough, and if you do, you get to publish a paper in one of the top journals. For anyone to get access to that publication, they have to pay hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars to subscribe to a single journal. And here's the kicker — the journal owns the data for a year. The taxpayers fund $5 billion a year in cancer research, but once it's published, nearly all of that taxpayer-funded research sits behind walls."

"When research is widely available to other researchers and the public, it can save lives, provide policymakers with the tools to make critical decisions, and drive more equitable outcomes across every sector of society," Dr. Nelson said when the initiative launched. "The American people fund tens of billions of dollars of cutting-edge research annually. There should be no delay or barrier between the American public and the returns on their investments in research."

Now that the transition period has concluded, key changes include:

• Embargo eliminated — publishers can no longer block access to federally funded research behind a 12-month paywall
• Authorship transparency — agencies disclose authorship, funding, affiliations, and development status of federally funded research
• Equitable access — researchers and their institutions are guaranteed access to their own research findings
• Ongoing OSTP coordination — agencies continue to align on equitable delivery of research results and data

This policy update was the product of years of engagement between OSTP and stakeholders across the research ecosystem, including large and small science and academic publishers, for-profit and nonprofit organizations, libraries, universities, scholarly societies, and members of the public. Earlier milestones included agencies updating their public access and data-sharing plans by mid-2023, followed by phased implementation over the subsequent two years.

OSTP continues to monitor the policy's effectiveness and coordinate with federal agencies to ensure public access approaches keep pace with new technologies and emerging needs in the research landscape.