Congressional Panel Favors Access to Publicly Funded Research
The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee agreed to direct the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to require that its funded research be made publicly available on the Internet. The Senate’s 2008 appropriations bill 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 twelve months after publication. The bill will go to the full Senate later this summer, and the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to consider a similar measure in July. More information is available at www.taxpayeraccess.org.
