The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) announced in September that it will allow almost-final versions of manuscripts accepted for publication in its journals, including Science, to be freely shared on open-access platforms. The rule will come into force in 2023 and differs from the approach adopted by the editorial teams behind other high-impact journals, such as Cell and Nature, who charge authors article-processing charges (APCs) to make their papers open access. The AAAS’s decision comes hot on the heels of US policy changes regarding publicly funded research. In August, the US government’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memorandum instructing the country’s federal science and technology departments and agencies to update their open-access policies by December 2025. The aim is to ensure that studies funded by the taxpayer are freely accessible to the public immediately after publication.
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