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Obama to Weigh Open Access

A petition asking for online, readable publication of all government-funded research is making its way to the White House.

Written byEdyta Zielinska
| 1 min read

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Advocates of open access have started an online petition that can be signed by US and non-US citizens, urging President Obama to implement policies making all publicly-funded research open access. With a more than 14,000 signatures to date, the petition is well on its way to meeting its 25,000-name goal.

The Administration’s Office of Science and Technology is taking an interest in open access, having put out two calls for public information on the topic in the past two years. And the president’s science advisor John Holdren— believed to be sympathetic to the cause, according to The Guardian–has already met several times with open access advocates.

The National Institutes of Health already has a policy requiring federally funded research to be made publicly accessible within ...

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Meet the Author

  • The Scientist Placeholder Image

    Edyta Zielinska was a senior editor at The Scientist from 2007 to 2013, where she worked closely with scientific illustrators to develop accompanying graphics to illuminate complex concepts. 

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