Letter from Annie Callanan, Taylor & Francis CEO, to Dr Kelvin Droegemeier, OSTP Director

Supporting public access for Federally funded research

The following letter was sent by Annie Callanan, Taylor & Francis CEO, to Dr Kelvin Droegemeier, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

You can also read our response to the OSTP’s Request for Information on enhancing access to the outputs of Federally funded research.

February 6, 2020

Dr Kelvin Droegemeier
Office of Science and Technology Policy
Executive Office of the President
Eisenhower Executive Office Building
1650 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20504

Dear Dr Droegemeier

Taylor & Francis is an international academic publisher, publishing more than 2,700 journals and over 5,000 new books each year, with a books backlist in excess of 120,000 specialist titles. Last year 65,000 US authors chose to publish over 30,000 research articles in our journals. We employ over 400 colleagues across the United States, including Boca Raton, New York and Philadelphia and publish 800 journals in the US, partnering with over 150 American learned societies and associations.

We are writing to express our support for a public access policy for federally funded research. We are supportive of a policy that increases the proportion of research outputs that are immediately available for any interested party to access, whilst ensuring that adequate funding is in place to support their creation, dissemination and curation on an Open basis. We also believe that research is most effective, efficient and impactful when it is made openly available. In addition to exploring routes to achieve openness across research disciplines, we are working on a broader Open Research agenda and are keen to support a more open scholarly communication ecosystem.

A quarter of US-authored articles that Taylor & Francis has published over the past three years are already openly available. Whilst this is good progress, we are aligned with your vision to support researchers to share more of their research faster, optimizing the dissemination and impact of quality research.

• We have a portfolio of over 280 fully open access journals, over 50 of which have moved from a subscription to open access model. Over 90% of our journals offer open access publication options to authors, and we also encourage Open Research practices, such as the sharing of research data through our data sharing policy.
• We recently acquired the cutting edge open access publisher F1000 Research, which will enable us to convert applied, expert and advanced research into solutions that benefit the research community and society at large.
• We have a number of ‘transformative’ deals in place globally and have been working with several universities in the US on their Open Research goals; agreeing deals that cover subscription and open access spend to help institutions manage their budgets more effectively while shifting the dial towards Open.
• We have invested heavily in infrastructure, tools and standards to reduce complexity and administrative burden for authors, institutions and funders choosing to make work openly available. We provide support and guidance for authors around existing public access policies, including the 2013 Public Access memo and ensure that the outputs of research funded by bodies such as the NIH and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are deposited in the PubMed Central database.

Publishers such as Taylor & Francis serve the research community by providing services that are essential to the creation of trusted research outputs. These services include editorial development; author and peer reviewer recruitment, training and support; support to learned societies; ongoing investment in technology and infrastructure; contribution to industry-level standards that improve quality and interlink the scholarly communication record; and long-term hosting and preservation. Publishers also act as independent bodies, publishing research across all disciplines, from basic to applied research. All of these services assist the advancement of quality research, but inevitably come at a cost. We are therefore keen to ensure that the introduction of any new policy is appropriately funded and resourced.

As a key contributor to the research ecosystem, we are supportive of the Trump Administration’s ambition to increase the availability of research outputs. We offer some suggestions below around policy implementation which we believe will facilitate the continued effective operation of the research communication ecosystem:

1. Researchers should remain able to use grant funding to cover charges related to publishing the final version of their work on an immediate open access basis. This will ensure ready and fast access to quality research outputs.
2. US funders and policymakers should align their policymaking around research communication and access. This will ensure that stakeholders are working towards a shared set of common goals, reducing complexity for researchers, and supporting international collaboration on research.
3. Rewards and incentives structures should be created to encourage broader Open Research practices amongst researchers. Feedback from our 2019 researcher survey suggests that open or public access should not be the only focus in facilitating more effective and open research; rather, there should be more support for early career researchers as they progress in their careers, and for greater diversity within academia.

Taylor & Francis is committed to making true progress on these objectives to ensure maximum impact and truly global access to research.  To do so, dialogue across stakeholders is key. We welcome your open and constructive engagement with publishers and other stakeholders in the research communication system.

I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss your open access plans and would be delighted to meet at your convenience.

Best wishes

Annie Callanan

CEO, Taylor & Francis

cc

Joe Grogan, Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy
Russell Vought, Director (Acting), Office of Management and Budget
Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce
Dan Brouillette, Secretary of Energy, Department of Energy
Francis Collins, Director, National Institutes of Health
Dr France Córdova, Director, National Science Foundation
Dr Neil Jacobs, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction, performing the duties of Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere

Further reading

• Taylor & Francis response to the OSTP’s Request for Information on enhancing access to the outputs of Federally funded research
• F1000 Research Ltd response to the OSTP RFI