This policy change is important as it adds to the collective action of making open access the norm. It solidifies the growing view that this is the future of knowledge dissemination, and that the status quo is no longer fit for a global research enterprise. The United States is now catching up with other countries who are leading in open access and have prioritized it for many years.

The biggest impact will be the increase in open access awareness and openly available knowledge. It will inspire other organizations and institutions to join the movement if they have been reluctant in the past to act. To achieve immediate open access, I predict that a Rights Retention Strategy will need to be implemented. Authors should be more interested in and protective of the right to their publicly funded work.

A potential backfire is a further lock into commercial publishers and their exploitative business models. It's time that we learn from what hasn't worked and more aggressively act to ensure equity and sustainability of publishing is achieved. It's time for research to revert to being led by the research community. The largest publishers will continue to launch lobbying campaigns to protect the status quo and we must be resilient to these efforts.

Biography

Ashley is Program Officer of Knowledge and Research Services at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In this capacity she leads the foundation’s Open Access Policy’s implementation and associated initiatives. This work has sparked a passion for open access, that freely accessible knowledge has the power to improve and save lives.