Research Data Management Overview

The OSTP Public Access Memo, also known as the Nelson Memo, was released in August 2022 by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) under the direction of Dr. Alondra Nelson and was meant to ensure Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research. The memo guides all federal agencies to develop plans indicating how they will provide public access to the results of federally funded research. This memo is a successor to the 2013 OSTP memo Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research (also known as the Holdren Memo).

The 2022 Public Access Memo provides policy guidance to federal agencies on ensuring availability of federally funded research materials, including data and research results, to the public, free of charge and without an embargo period. The Nelson Memo applies to all federal agencies, regardless of research budget or field of study, and it includes both peer reviewed publications and their underlying data, and the ultimate goal is to provide free, immediate access to research. Three important things to know about these policies:

1. The policies will apply to both “scholarly publications” and the underlying “scientific data.” “Scholarly publications” for this purpose include works that have been peer-reviewed, such as journal articles or manuscripts, book chapters, and conference proceedings, published as a result of the funded research. “Scientific Data” refers to the underlying factual material that will allow others to replicate and validate research findings as reported in scholarly publications.
    
2. Federal funders will NOT require researchers to pay to publish their work openly in a journal - from the FAQs: "adherence to and implementation of the [memo] does not require expense on the part of the researcher. Impact on publishing costs is a possible, but not necessary outcome... the requirement can be achieved by use of agency-designated repositories with the final peer-reviewed manuscript."
    
3. All federal agencies must complete and share their plans by December 31, 2024, and take effect no later than December 31, 2025. But note, some agencies might put the requirements in place before December 31, 2025. A list of Public Access Plans published by federal agencies is available on SPARC's 2022 OSTP Public Access Memo Guidance page.

Adapted from https://lib.asu.edu/news/research/3-takeaways-2022-white-house-office-science-and-technology-policy

The Restoring Gold Standard Science executive order (EO 14303, May 23, 2025) directs federal agencies to enhance scientific integrity by ensuring that research used in policymaking is transparent, reproducible, and rigorously peer-reviewed—while mandating the public release of underlying data, analyses, and models that significantly influence government decisions. According to the order, Gold Standard Science means research will be conducted in a manner that is:

1. reproducible
2. transparent
3. communicative of error and uncertainty
4. collaborative and interdisciplinary
5. skeptical of its findings and assumptions
6. structured for falsifiability of hypotheses
7. subject to unbiased peer review
8. accepting of negative results as positive outcomes
9. without conflicts of interest