Current Legislation
H.R. 3699 (Research Works Act) has been shelved. If passed, the RWA would have blocked public access to publicly-funded research and begun to deauthorize the current public access policy already in place at the NIH.
H.R. 4004 (Bipartisan Federal Research Public Access Act-- FRPAA) has been introduced, which would ensure public access to research funded by eleven U.S. federal agencies. Moreover, this bill would mandate all publicly-funded research to be made available to the public no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The mandate currently in place allows an embargo of up to twelve months.
In response to the publisher Elsevier's initial support (which has since been withdrawn) of the Research Works Act, over 8,000 researchers to date have signed a petition to boycott affiliation in journals owned by Elsevier until they "radically change how they operate". For more information on current legislation and the petition visit:
