The White House issued a directive today that requires Federal agencies with annual spending of more than $100M in Research & Development to develop plans to make the publications that flow from the research they fund openly available to the public within a year of publication.

The directive, which takes effect today, was announced in a policy memorandum issued by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). OSTP has been evaluating the need for more open access to federally funded research for some time, having collected public comments in 2010 and 2012, including those from MIT. The White House also received a “We the People” petition that reached the level requiring an official response.

This White House directive affects more federal agencies than FASTR, the open access bill that was introduced into both houses of Congress on February 14. Starting today, the Federal agencies have six months to develop policies for making both scientific publications and data openly accessible to the public within twelve months of publication.

For more information:
Peter Suber’s blog post