Nelson Memo

On August 25, 2022, the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memorandum from Dr. Alondra Nelson, on Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research, commonly referred to as the Nelson Memo.

The Nelson Memo ensures free, immediate, and equitable access to federally funded research. It builds on the guidance from 2013’s Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research from Dr. John Holdren (the Holdren Memo) with the following changes:

• Federal grant agencies must provide immediate public access to both peer-reviewed scholarly publications and underlying research data (no longer permitting a year embargo as the Holdren memo did)
• All federal grant agencies must comply with the memo’s provisions (expanding from Holdren Memo which only covered agencies with $100 million + budgets)

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