May 7, 2020
AAP SUBMITS COMMENTS TO ADMINISTRATION REGARDING OPEN ACCESS POLICY FOR PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS
The Association of American Publishers has submitted public comments in response to a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Request for Information on “Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications, Data and Code Resulting From Federally Funded Research.”
As a principal point of emphasis, AAP highlights the numerous and critical contributions of both commercial and noncommercial publishers to the objectives of scientific progress and intellectual advancement, driven by their investments in the production, distribution, and long-term stewardship of high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles. These investments propel a vast universe of highly regarded publications—in every conceivable area of medicine, science, and humanities—to people all over the globe.
“Publishers support open science and have been essential to its evolution by developing an ever-increasing array of open access and public access models in the marketplace, as well as tools to enhance the dissemination and impact of publications,” commented AAP’s Matthew Barblan, Vice President, Public Policy. “Through these innovations, publishers are continuously creating options by which researchers can communicate their ideas and discoveries to the world, while also ensuring the accuracy and peer-review that are indispensable to the process.”
Noting the especially innovative marketplace for research publications that exists today, AAP urges OSTP to take special care to avoid the drastic marketplace intrusions that some actors have called for—such as government-mandated immediate free online access to peer-reviewed works. Such actions are at odds with good policy, would dramatically reduce investment in high-quality content, and would undermine the innovative open access and public access business models currently being developed in the marketplace.
Hundreds of non-profit research organizations, along with Members of Congress, private companies, and trade associations across a range of industries and interests have expressed concerns that a policy of government-mandated immediate free online access to peer-reviewed manuscripts would: (1) directly and negatively impact American researchers, scientists, and medical professionals, as well as the quality of scientific and medical research publications produced in the U.S.; (2) undermine American intellectual property rights that are fundamental to promoting investment and innovation in science and medicine; and (3) directly and negatively impact the American economy, jobs, and thriving U.S. intellectual property exports.
AAP’s full comments are available here.
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