White House announces new US open access policy

White House announces new US open access policy. Newsblog (nature.com), 22 Feb 2013, Posted by Richard Van Noorden.

In a long-awaited leap forward for open access, the US government said today that publications from taxpayer-funded research should be made free to read after a year’s delay – expanding a policy which until now has only applied to biomedical science.

With both the US and Europe supporting delayed-access to publications, the UK government looks increasingly isolated in its preference for immediate open access. That policy is due to come in from 1 April, but the details are not yet clear. Communication around the policy was yesterday criticized as “unacceptable” by a House of Lords inquiry.