ASME and IEEE: White House Open Access Proposal Will Limit Research and Innovation

Last August, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) declared that researchers who want to continue to receive federal grants must make all scientific publications resulting from those grants publicly available. On its face, it sounds simple and even laudable—but this seductively simple proposal isn’t all that simple and has far-reaching consequences. 

Under the current plan, OSTP’s efforts to democratize research could very well create the opposite effect, limiting the best and most valued publishing assets to the wealthiest elite while damaging America’s research ecosystem and hampering our nation’s ability to innovate.
 
As one of the world’s largest engineering societies and as a significant publisher of engineering-related books, journals, and proceedings, ASME has joined with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to raise the issues inherent in the “Open Access” policy that will affect, if not negatively damage, the future of U.S. scientific publishing. 
 
Read here the op-ed co-authored by ASME Executive Director & CEO Tom Costabile and IEEE-USA President Eduardo Palacio published in The Hill.