Science, Publishing, and Public Funding

You paid me to do cancer research. Want to see the results? Well, that's extra.

Earlier this year, the Research Works Act (RWA) was abandoned by its sponsors in the House (Darrell Issa, R-CA, and Carolyn B. Maloney, D-NY) due to vocal opposition from scientists, scholars, and taxpayers.  The bill, which was supported by private publishers of scientific literature such as Elsevier, would have made it illegal for federal agencies to make the research funded by said agencies available to the public online, for free.  That would have overturned the policy of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which makes copies of any research articles it funds freely available to the public on the internet, six months after the article's original date of publication in a scientific journal.  RWA would have forbidden such wide dissemination of scientific knowledge, instead redirecting public funds to pad private-sector profits.

Keep in mind, no one forces publishers to publish NIH-funded articles. They choose to publish NIH-funded articles because the research is outstanding:  if one publisher decides not to be the vehicle by which scientists announce a new discovery, a rival publisher will snatch up the opportunity.   The prestige and indirect revenue derived from publishing high-quality research is enough to motivate publishers; charging the public exorbitant fees to read articles is not necessary to cover publishing costs.  (Ask me how much it costs to make this blog available to you.)  In fact, open-access journals, which make all their articles available online for free, are becoming more common.  

The backlash against the RWA has spurred renewed interest in a fundamental principle:  if the public funded the research, the public owns the research.  A bill introduced by my own representative John Cornyn (R-TX), as well as Joe Lieberman (I-CT), would expand free public access to federally-funded research by requiring all federal agencies to adopt a policy similar to that of the NIH.  If you agree, go sign the petition at WhiteHouse.gov, so we can reach the 25,000 signatures necessary to secure an official response from the administration.