Establishing Public Access to Results of IARPA-Sponsored Research

A White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) memorandum called for federal agencies to increase public access to the results of federally funded research, including both publications and data. Public access is important so that other researchers can independently validate and build upon the results. At the time of the memorandum, publications resulting from federally funded research often remained behind a paywall (subscription, membership, or other type of fee) long past their useful life, and research data was often inaccessible to outside researchers. OSTP advocated making publications freely available after a year behind the paywall and making research data as accessible as possible, subject to security, privacy, and intellectual property rights.