A significant change to the world of academic publishing is welcomed news by librarians across the country, including those at Pittsburgh's two largest research universities.
A new rule from the Biden Administration stipulates that all federally funded research studies must be free to the public, beginning in 2026. Currently, academic journals can keep articles behind paywalls for 12 months. The change means that the U.S. public will have greater access to the research their tax dollars pay for.
Dean of Libraries at Carnegie Mellon University Keith Webster predicts this move will help democratize research. "It will improve the integrity of science. It will increase public trust in taxpayer-funded research. And it will promote equity in the research enterprise. It's an exciting time."
Webster is a member of Open Access 2020. The organization, led by Germany's Max Planck Institute, advocates for open-access publishing models for academic journals.
Like her CMU counterpart, the director of the University of Pittsburgh's library system is thrilled by this development. Kornelia Tancheva says the 12-month embargo in academic publishing creates inequities.
For one thing, many researchers in low- and middle-income countries currently lack access to expensive journals. But in 2026, scientists around the world will be able to see the results of new and important studies at the same time as their American and European peers.
Also, Tancheva takes issue with the fact that universities like hers must purchase subscriptions to academic journals in the first place.
"[Faculty] do their research, and then they sign off their copyright to the publishers, which means that libraries then buy back the research that was done at their institutions," said Tancheva. "There's something very wrong about that, right?"
This change may significantly impact publishers of scientific journals, including professional societies that are often nonprofits. Their revenue models are at least partly based on paywalls that charge people to access the federally-funded research they publish.
One group that won't see a financial impact, at least not directly, is the researchers whose work gets published in these journals. This is because academics are not paid for the copyright of their work. In addition, the academics who peer review studies before publication are also not paid by the journals for their labor.
