GWLA Chief Academic and Research Officers Support FRPAA

On 1 October, 2009 the Chief Academic and Research Officers of the Greater Western Library Alliance member universities sent a letter to Congress supporting the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA). The signatories of the letter were representatives from the following universities: University of Hawaii at Manoa; Washington University; University of Kansas; University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Arizona State University; University of Oregon; Texas Tech University; Kansas State University; University of Utah; Southern Illinois University Carbondale; University of Colorado – Boulder; Utah State University; University of Missouri – Columbia; Oregon State University.

The goal of FRPAA, introduced into Congress by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Joe Lieberman, (I-CT), is to require that final manuscripts of original research papers that have been accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals and result from research supported, in whole or in part, from funding by the Federal Government be made freely available online as soon as practicable, but not later than 6 months after publication. The federal research agencies affected by this bill are those with extramural research expenditures of over $100,000,000.

Excerpt from the letter:

Timely, barrier-free access to the results of federally funded research supports the core mission of our academic institutions and is essential to fully utilize our collective investment in science. FRPAA will help us maximize this investment by increasing the sharing research results, advancing the pace of discovery, and applying this knowledge for the benefit of our communities.

The FRPAA bill also expands on the success of the public access policy of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the first U.S. agency to require public access to taxpayer-funded research. More than 450,000 unique users access material from the NIH repository each day. Under S.1373, we envision researchers and students working in fields of equal importance – from climate change to renewable energy – having the same access to federally funded research to advance their critical work.

Full-text of letter.