NIH To Start Giving Free Access to Research

The National Institute of Health has announced that it has established a new policy to make NIH-funded research free to the public. Their press release is at http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/feb2005/od-03.htm . ( As long as we're here I want to note that the NIH has a nifty RSS feed available for their press releases; it's at http://www.nih.gov/news/feed.xml . )

From the press release: "The policy - the first of its kind for NIH - calls on scientists to release to the public manuscripts from research supported by NIH as soon as possible, and within 12 months of final publication."

The press release goes on to note that starting May 2, NIH-funded scientists will have to submit an electronic version of their final manuscript, and that the electronic version of their final manuscript will be considered the final version. The scientists will have the option to release their manuscript to public access immediately after publication or delay it up to twelve months.

Bravo to the NIH for getting this underway. It'll be interesting to note a) how they organize this information and b) how many scientists will choose to use the delay.

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