White House

Trump Might Free Science That’s Locked Behind Paywalls — a Win for Open Access

Reportedly, the White House may issue an executive order on federally funded research. Publishers aren’t happy.

The Trump administration is reportedly considering issuing an executive order that would make it easier for everyone to access publicly funded research.

According to E&E News, the White House is considering mandating, via executive order, that all federally funded research be immediately available to the public upon publication. Currently, a lot of federally funded research is kept behind a paywall for one year before it becomes public. The executive order would reportedly mandate eliminating that paywall period.

It’s unclear what’s motivating the administration to issue this mandate, and the text of the potential executive order has not yet been released. At this point, it’s hard to completely evaluate its merits.

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