NIH Cancels Announcement and Appears Poised to Back Away From Open Access Mandate
In a classic Washington political twist, The NIH abruptly cancelled a press conference scheduled for Tuesday that was expected to announce a new NIH policy promoting free access to taxpayer funded medical research–and it now appears that the NIH policy itself will be significantly scaled back from its original plan. According to SPARC director Rick Johnson, announcement of the NIH policy could be delayed indefinitely and at least until after confirmation hearings for the new Department of Health and Human Services Secretary-designate, Michael Leavitt, to whom the NIH reports. "If this is the case," Johnson mused in an email to fellow supporters, "it appears to reveal NIH’s concern about the reaction of supporters of open- access to taxpayer funded NIH research and the potential that the issue will come up in the confirmation hearings." Indeed, at least one media source, The Washington Fax, reported that "White House political strategy" was behind the postponement, characterizing the move as an attempt to ensure that "controversy surrounding the policy would not slow down Senate confirmation hearings" for Leavitt.
Most significantly, however, it also appears that the NIH has now backed off on its initial plan to make taxpayer- funded research freely available within six months of publication. In a memo to members seen by the LJ Academic Newswire, Association of American Publishers (AAP) president Pat Schroeder revealed details of a Tuesday phone conversation with NIH director Elias Zerhouni, in which Zerhouni reported that the proposed NIH policy would "encourage public access as soon as possible within a 12 month period," with compliance to be "voluntary." That is a major shift from NIH’s initial policy draft, which proposed that all research funded entirely or in part by the NIH be made freely, publicly available in PubMed Central, the NIH’s online repository, within six months of publication, unless publication costs were funded by the NIH, in which case the research would be made immediately available. The latest policy language remains unconfirmed.
However, should NIH recommend voluntary submission to PubMed Central within a 12-month period, that would be a major victory for publishers, who have strongly criticized the NIH’s original policy as radical and potentially harmful to publishers, scientific societies, and researchers. Schroeder also reported that Zerhouni noted that NIH received over 6300 comments on the proposed policy, a large number, most of which were supportive of the NIH’s position. Supporters of the NIH plan, meanwhile, expressed uneasiness over the developments. "If reports about the policy are true, it is either a modest step in the right direction, or a case of NIH not living up to its full responsibility to American taxpayers," Johnson wrote in an email memo. "A year from now, if most NIH research is available in PubMed Central soon after publication, then the policy will have succeeded. But to achieve a favorable outcome, NIH must provide strong signals to grantees about its expectation that research should be available to the public as soon as possible."
Library Journal Academic Newswire, January 13, 2005
