8 July 2024
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has released an updated financial analysis report, addressing questions about the implications of removing paywalls from all federally funded research. This latest report marks the third attempt by OSTP to outline the potential funding mechanisms to support the planned public access mandate, which aims to make research results freely accessible at the time of publication.
The updated report underscores the persistent challenges OSTP faces in calculating open access fees, such as article processing charges (APCs). According to the report, accurate APC expenditure records are held by the authors who pay these fees and the publishers who invoice them. These records are “neither publicly reported by publishers nor systematically reported to funders by researchers or their institutions,” making it difficult to gather comprehensive data.
Additionally, most publishers do not disclose the costs associated with taking an article through the peer review process to final publication. This lack of transparency hampers efforts to project future changes in APCs.
Despite the data limitations, OSTP extended its original analysis to cover estimated APCs incurred in 2022 for federally funded research. The findings indicate that these costs ranged from $318 million to $399 million, depending on the bibliographic database used. This represents between 0.09% and 0.25% of total federal R&D expenditures.
In comparison, OSTP's previous reports estimated annual government spending on open access publishing to be between $390 million and $789 million. The 2023 report highlighted an increase in APC expenditures from approximately $272 million in 2016 to $379 million in 2021, with revised estimates now suggesting these figures were $281 million in 2016 and $408 million in 2021.
The updated report is a response to congressional appropriators who have expressed concerns about the financial impact of the public access policy. Initially, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee sought to block OSTP from implementing the policy, citing it as an “unfunded mandate” issued without a “serious financial analysis.” Although this prohibition was removed during final negotiations for the fiscal year 2024 appropriations legislation, OSTP was directed to produce an “in-depth financial analysis” of the policy or pause its implementation.
House Republicans have renewed efforts to block the policy, including language in the draft FY25 appropriations bill that would prevent OSTP from using funds to “implement, administer, apply, enforce, or carry out” the policy.
Despite the political challenges, federal agencies are moving forward with their public access plans ahead of the mandatory implementation in 2026. For instance, the National Institutes of Health has opened public comment on its draft public access plan, with feedback accepted until August 19.
The OSTP’s latest report reflects ongoing efforts to navigate the complexities of open access publishing while addressing the concerns of lawmakers and stakeholders. As the debate continues, the focus remains on ensuring that the benefits of publicly funded research are accessible to all.