A showdown is looming in Congress as defenders of the public interest have moved to counter the special interest sellout of the pending Research Works Act (RWA), which would end public access to the results of Federally funded research. A bipartisan group of legislators in both houses of Congress just introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) of 2012 which would require Federal agencies that fund significant amounts of extramural research (more than $100 million per year) to implement public access policies similar in aims to that already in place at the NIH.
Let’s make sure the good guys win by transforming the public outcry against RWA into support for FRPAA. Write to your reps and urge them to support the bill, and write to the following legislators to thank them for their ongoing support of this important piece of public policy:
- Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) (@usrepmikedoyle)
- Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS)
- Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay (D-MO)
- Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) (@johncornyn)
- Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) (@ronwyden)
The big question now is whether all the publishers who disowned the Research Works Act amidst its bad publicity will take the logical next step and express their support for FRPAA. I’m sure the Association of American Publishers and Elsevier will come out against FRPAA, but public support for the bill from other members of the AAP would greatly undermine their stance. I’m particularly interested to see where the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology will come down on this. FASEB, an umbrella group that represents many scientific societies in the US, has a very effective lobbying effort, and do a lot of great things to support science and science funding in the US. Their history with respect to public access is mixed, however. It would be a big step forward if they came out in support of FRPAA, and would be a major step towards its passage. If you are a member of any FASEB societies, urge them to express their support for FRPAA publicly, as well as to FASEB leadership.
I'm a biologist at UC Berkeley and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. I work primarily on flies, and my research encompases evolution, development, genetics, genomics, chemical ecology and behavior. I am a strong proponent of open science, and a co-founder of the 
5 Comments
Great News! Now maybe my fence-sitting Critter will get with the program!!!!
This is fantastic news! I have been very bothered by a comment that technology blogger Joel Spolsky made during the outcry about SOPA/PIPA:
It’s a real delight to find that we now have positive legislation out there that we can get behind, rather than just a sequence of bad bills that we have to oppose. Also good to see five pro-science co-sponsors, pretty evenly made up of Democrats and Republicans.
Good times.
(Dammit, failed to close the anchor tag. Seems there is no way to edit, or delete-and-resubmit, my comment. Michael, if you can fix that for me, and delete this one, I’d appreciate it.)
Hi Mike. See the reference page on FRPAA I’m building at the Harvard Open Access Project.
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Notes_on_the_Federal_Research_Public_Access_Act
This is very good!
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[...] February 9th, 2012 var addthis_config = {"data_track_addressbar":true}; By Michael Eisen | February 9, [...]
[...] Informationen zum FRPAA finden sich im Blog von PLoS-Gründer Michael Eisen. Über die Geschichte des FRPAA informiert das Harvard Open Access [...]
[...] his blog today, Michael Eisen, who has led opposition to RWA, challenged these publishers to now shift their [...]
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[...] http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=925 [...]
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[...] Informationen zum FRPAA finden sich im Blog von PLoS-Gründer Michael Eisen. Über die Geschichte des FRPAA informiert das Harvard Open [...]
[...] only February! At this rate, 2012 looks to be a banner year for open access. Next up, the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), which would expand the federally-mandated open access policies to all funding agencies with [...]
[...] http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=925 [...]