Policy for Increasing Access to Results of EPA-Funded Extramural Scientific Research

On February 22, 2013, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a Memorandum entitled “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research.” This Memorandum directed Federal departments and agencies that spend more than $100 million per year on research and development (R&D) to develop and submit a plan to OSTP to increase public access to peer-reviewed, scientific research publications and research data. In response, EPA developed its “Plan to Increase Access to Results of EPA-Funded Scientific Research” to increase access to peer-reviewed scientific research journal publications or associated author manuscripts, and their underlying digital data.

EPA developed EPA Order 1000.17B “Policy for Increasing Access to Results of EPA-Funded Extramural Scientific Research" to implement the requirements outlined in the OSTP memorandum for extramural agreements. The Order describes requirements for EPA offices that manage research through extramural agreements (i.e., grant and cooperative agreements, interagency agreements, and contracts).

The objective of EPA Order 1000.17B is to maximize, at no charge, access by the public to peer-reviewed scientific research journal publications or associated author manuscripts and their underlying digital data created in whole or in part with EPA funds, while protecting confidentiality and personal privacy; recognizing proprietary interests; confidential business information; and intellectual property rights; and avoiding significant negative impact on intellectual property rights, innovation, and U.S. competitiveness. The Order requires that extramural recipients make EPA-funded extramural research journal publications or associated author manuscripts accessible to the public at no charge via the National Institutes of Health’s PubMed Central (PMC) repository and post the digital data underlying the publications or author manuscripts to a publicly accessible platform. Publication-related metadata will be accessible through PMC. Metadata pertaining to the dataset underlying the publication will be accessible from the EPA’s Environmental Dataset Gateway (EDG).

Related Resources

• Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research
• Plan to Increase Access to Results of EPA-Funded Scientific Research
• EPA Order 1000.17B: Policy for Increasing Access to Results of EPA-Funded Extramural Scientific Research
• Instructions for Depositing Publications in The National Institutes of Health Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system
• Adding Metadata to EDG for EPA Public Access 
• Publications and Data Access Assistance Agreement Terms and Conditions