Effective Dec. 31, 2025, all federally funded research must be made freely available upon publication. The change — originally made by the Biden administration in 2022 — did away with the option for researchers to keep their federally funded work behind journal paywalls for 12 months before making it openly accessible.
Much of the research conducted at universities like Brown is funded through federal grants, which are supported by tax dollars. But since 2008, the allotted 12-month embargo period has allowed publishers to enjoy “exclusive access” to the papers that are funded by these federal grants, said Andrew Creamer, the open science librarian at the University Library.
Publishers have long been able to make a profit by charging fees or requiring subscription payments for access to new papers before the 12-month period ended. If researchers want their papers to be made free to the public immediately, they must pay the publisher — and to publish in some of the most prestigious journals, this can cost the researcher “thousands of dollars,” Creamer said.
Despite the federal rule change, many publications have not yet removed their open access fees, leaving the burden on the researchers using the federal dollars to ensure open access by paying for it.
The University has been negotiating with publishers to waive fees for authors, ensuring compliance with the new policy, Creamer told The Herald. He added that agreements have already been reached with several publishers, including Elsevier and Cambridge University Press.
For articles that are well-received and reviewed favorably, authors sometimes may receive a fee waiver from journals if they are unable to pay the cost for open access, said George Lisi, an associate professor and co-director of graduate studies for the department of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry. He said “private foundation grants” and “internal money” from the University may also be used to pay for those fees.
Some researchers at Brown see the federal rule change as a possible step toward open access science.
According to Karthikeyani Chellappa, assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology, researchers are “happy that they have put in this rule.” Similarly, Lisi believes the rule change will be “good for science” but that it may cause “a little bit of angst in the beginning” as researchers adjust to the additional cost.
“If the taxpayers pay to fund this, they should have access to the information,” Lisi said. “But in the ecosystem of how folks run labs, there will be challenges.”
Despite overall supporting the rule change, Allan Just, associate professor of public health and epidemiology and environment and society, voiced concern about requiring researchers to pay for open access. He noted that the change requires researchers to build the open access fees into their budgets when they write their grant proposals.
Just added that the rule change could cause problems for junior researchers if they want to publish research that has open access costs “not within the scope of” their original grant proposals. He also believes the rule change does not address the root of the issue for open science access and does not “challenge the current publisher model.”
Chellappa raised uncertainty regarding how the rule change will affect the future of research.
“Are they going to increase the fees further?” she asked. “At the end of the day, there should be some sort of talk between academics, government and publishing companies to make it a more feasible model.”
Angel Lopez is a senior staff writer covering Science and Research. He’s a first-year student from Tyler, Texas and planning to study neuroscience and literary arts. In his free time, you can find him playing ping pong, listening to music, or reading.
