The Washington Post reports “The White House moved Friday to make nearly all federally funded research freely available to the public, the latest advance in a long-running battle over access to research that exploded into view last month after the suicide of free-information activist Aaron Swartz.

White House science adviser John Holdren wrote “To that end, I have issued a memorandum today (.pdf) to Federal agencies that directs those with more than $100 million in research and development expenditures to develop plans to make the results of federally-funded research publicly available free of charge within 12 months after original publication.”

Some people are upset at the 1-year wait period — for now I think it’s ok but I will still prefer to publish open-access from the beginning to avoid the wait.

Another piece of good news is the University of Washington’s Green Laboratory Certification Program, which will encourage academic science laboratories to engage in better stewardship. There is no similar program at UAF but I will encourage the implementation of such a program and strive to hold my lab to similar standards.

Tags:   environment · green · open access · politics · scienceNo Comments