25,000 Sign OA Petition

A petition to require researchers funded by US federal science agencies to share their results now has enough signatures to prompt a response from the White House.

Written byBob Grant

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Open access advocates are declaring a small victory after collecting 25,000 signatures on a petition that urges the federal government to require scientists receiving federal research funds to make their findings available on publicly accessible websites —a policy already adopted by the National Institutes of Health. The petition made its way to the White House a week and a half ago, at which point The Guardian reported that President Obama's science advisor, John Holdren, was meeting with open access advocates to discuss the matter.

"Requiring the published results of taxpayer-funded research to be posted on the Internet ... would speed the research process and increase the return on our investment in scientific research," reads the petition, which started circulating last month (May 13). With their ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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