From: Danny Jones <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:46:43 -0600 I recently retired and as a result signed off this list, but I am very interested in seeing (specifically in my case) NIH-funded final reports made publicly available. However, I recommend going a step further to require the annual progress reports to be also made publicly available along with data collected with federally funded grants. Before I retired on January 6, 2012 as director of the library at Texas Biomedical Research Institute, I was responsible for monitoring compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy by our mostly NIH-funded investigators. TxBiomed scientists are generally supportive of the policy, but it isn't always easy to be in compliance for a variety of reasons. And complying represents an added regulatory burden for investigators who often have moved on to other investigations when an article finally gets published. NIH already requires funded investigators to submit annual progress reports and final reports on research that they fund. While I agree that the final reports should be made publicly available, I think it is also important that the progress reports should also be made publicly available. NIH grants may require several years of work before a final report is submitted, and during this time investigators may publish articles reporting results of their funded investigations, which results will also be included in their annual progress reports. Waiting for final reports to be submitted to NIH may actually delay access to NIH-funded research results, so both the annual progress reports and the final report should be made publicly available. As these reports are required by NIH already, it does not represent an added burden to investigators (they are already doing it), and the burden rests directly where it should be, with the funded investigator. For as it is now with the NIH Public Access Policy, final approval of manuscripts deposited into the NIH Manuscript Submission System is the responsibility of the corresponding author, who is not necessarily the NIH-funded author. The NIH Public Access Policy should be repealed in my opinion. It is an unnecessary added burden for NIH-funded authors and compliance is not as simple as some suggest it is. And the punitive nature in which investigators are required to comply by threat of consideration against future funding from NIH does not result in great enthusiasm for government regulations. The progress reports and the final reports are already part of the established responsibility of NIH-funded investigators, and making them publicly available will provide the public with full information about the research that the government is paying for. While this approach does not address the contents of published journal articles, having access to the investigators' reports of federally funded research may in fact eliminate the need for access to journal articles that acknowledge federally funded research grants. My chief concern would be alert to and to resist efforts to minimize the content of progress and annual reports. Finally, not only should the reports be publicly available, but all data generated as a result of federal funding should also be publicly available. Danny Jones mailto:[log in to unmask]