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NIH Public Access Policy: is the funding for full OA already there?



The funding for full open access publishing to NIH-funded research may already be there, within existing NIH grant provisions.

NIH is already spending $30 million per year in publication expenses, such as page charges, and allows for "indirect costs" which can be used for such items as library subscriptions and site licenses.

Let's look at what can be done just with the $30 million per year already spent on publication charges. About 60-65,000 articles were published based on NIH research in 2003. If all of these were published as open access, less than half would incur article processing fees (as indicated by an ALPSP study). If the $30 million per year were used to fund article processing fees for half of NIH- related articles, 32,500, the average available per article would be $923. That is less than what is charged by some open access publishers, it is true; but it is also more than what is charged by others.

This does not account for the possibility of redeploying some of the funds available for "indirect costs" from library subscriptions and site licenses, to supporting open access initiatives. In addition to enhancing dissemination - and hence advances of research - there are economic benefits, too. An NIH-funded article that is openly accessible avoids costs for future NIH researchers building on what has already been learned, for example.

Librarians are ideally situated to lead in this transition.

For more analysis and links, please see by blogpost, NIH Public Access Policy: is the funding for full OA already there? http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2007/08/nih-public-access-policy- is-funding-for.html

Thanks to William Walsh on Liblicense for pointing to the relevant section of the NIH policy: http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0708/msg00021.html

Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone, and does not reflect the opinion or policy of BC Electronic Library Network or Simon Fraser University Library.

Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com