[A2k] Congressional Panel Favors Access to Publicly Funded Research

[Manon Ress]

--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
Alliance for Taxpayer Access
www.taxpayeraccess.org

For immediate release
June 28, 2007

Contact:
Jennifer McLennan
jennifer [at] arl [dot] org
(202) 296-2296 ext. 121

CONGRESSIONAL PANEL FAVORS ACCESS
TO PUBLICLY FUNDED RESEARCH

Washington, D.C. - June 28, 2007 - Public access to NIH-funded
research took a major step forward this week with Senate
Appropriations Committee agreement to direct the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) to require that its funded research be made publicly
available on the Internet.

This milestone was immediately praised by the Alliance for Taxpayer
Access (ATA), a coalition of patient groups, researchers, consumers,
and libraries that has long called for such a step.

"The momentum is real and Congress understands the public's
interest," said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (the
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, an ATA
founding member). "We congratulate Senators Tom Harkin and Arlen
Specter for their bipartisan leadership on this issue."

"It is significant that Senate appropriators are determined to
leverage the taxpayer investment in research by ensuring it can be
broadly applied," added Joseph. "Two years after the well-intentioned
voluntary NIH policy was introduced, too many researchers, students,
small businesses, and people facing diseases still lack access to the
publicly funded research they want and need. This is a big step in
the right direction."

The Senate's 2008 appropriations bill specifically requires that NIH-
funded researchers deposit in the National Library of Medicine's
online archive an electronic copy of their peer-reviewed manuscripts
upon acceptance for publication in a journal. Articles would become
publicly available no later than 12 months after publication.

"Action by our Senators in supporting this change is especially
welcomed by the patient community," said Colleen Zak, Executive
Director of the Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease and
Congenital Hepatic Fibrosis (ARPKD/CHF) Alliance. "Delivering on the
NIH public access policy will create anticipated opportunities for
accelerating research and finding cures."

Under the current NIH Public Access Policy, implemented in May 2005,
investigators have deposited less than five percent of eligible
manuscripts and, although a few publishers have also deposited
articles stemming from NIH-funded research, the vast majority is not
yet publicly available.

Congress has expressed concern about the voluntary policy's failure
to meet its goals. However, this is the first time the Senate
committee has proposed legislative action to correct the situation.
The Senate measure is similar to one recently put forth by the House
of Representatives Labor/HHS Appropriations Subcommittee.

The FY08 Senate Appropriations Bill is expected to go before the full
Senate for a vote later this summer. The House Labor/HHS
Appropriations measure will be considered by the full House
Appropriations Committee in July.

# # #

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access is a coalition of patient, academic,
research, and publishing organizations that support open public
access to the results of federally funded research. The Alliance was
formed in 2004 to urge that peer-reviewed articles stemming from
taxpayer-funded research become fully accessible and available online
at no extra cost to the American public. Details on the ATA may be
found at http://www.taxpayeraccess.org.

SPARC | 21 Dupont Circle NW, Ste. 800 | Washington, DC 20036 |
www.arl.org/sparc

This email was sent to manon.ress@cptech.org. To ensure that you
continue receiving our emails, please add us to your address book or
safe list.

manage your preferences | opt out using TrueRemove=AE.

Got this as a forward? Sign up to receive our future emails.

powered by


************************************************************************
***
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@keionline.org,

1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Ext 16 Fax: +1.202.332.2673

1 Route des  Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 791 6727

24 Highbury Crescent, London, N5 1RX, UK
Tel: +44(0)207 226 6663 ex 252 Fax: +44(0)207 354 0607


************************************************************************
***
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@keionline.org,

1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Ext 16 Fax: +1.202.332.2673

1 Route des  Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 791 6727

24 Highbury Crescent, London, N5 1RX, UK
Tel: +44(0)207 226 6663 ex 252 Fax: +44(0)207 354 0607