Federal Funding Requirements

In 2013, a mandate from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) directed federal agencies with over $100 million in R&D to require public access to articles and data resulting from grant funding. Each agency is responsible for detailing their exact requirements; often there is significant overlap between funders but there are also discipline-specific aspects of the requirements. Generally, those applying for grants will be asked to provide a greater level of detail in their data management plan.

This page will be updated as we have more information about specific policies. Please note that while we are trying our best to keep up with funder policies, this is an area that is changing very quickly. If you do not see your funder listed or have additional questions, please contact us.

Note: In the following table, (A) stands for article and (D) stands for data.

FunderFull NameMaximum Embargo PeriodAdditional content (hidden til clicked on; opens underneath)
ACL/NIDILRRAdministration for Community Living (ACL)/ National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR)Within 12 months (A), within 24 months of an award's end date (D)(A): PubMed Central

(D): Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), except longitudinal scientific data collected through the ACL/NIDILRR-funded Burn Injury, Spinal Cord Injury, and Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems, which should go to the National Statistical and Data Center of each respective model system. Each dataset must have a DOI.

Requires a data management plan from applicants.
AHRQAgency for Healthcare Research and QualityWithin 12 months (A), with article publication (D)(A): PubMed Central


(D): Data will be submitted to a commerical repository.

Notes: AHRQ will require all research applicants to include a data management plan as a component of their grant applications or contract proposals.
AHRQ will allow the inclusion of appropriate costs for data management and access in applications and proposals for AHRQ funding.
ASPRAssistant Secretary for Preparedness and ResponseWithin 12 months (A), with article publication/within 30 months of collection, whichever is sooner (D)(A): PubMed Central

(D): "recognized scientific data repository capable of long-term preservation of the data and open access to the public"

Notes:" Where appropriate, authors are encouraged to use Federally-sponsored data repositories for publishing their digital scientific data sets and meeting their obligations under this plan."

"Affected investigators must submit to the ASPR program staff a conforming metadata document that references the ASPR funding source(s), describes the data set, and provides a URL for the location of the published data set. The metadata for scientific data will include, at a minimum, the common core metadata schema in use by the Federal government, found at https://project-open-data.cio.gov/"
CDCCenters for Disease Control and PreventionWithin 12 months (A), with article publication/within 30 months of collection (D)(A): CDC Stacks, "A CDC-funded author must submit an electronic version of the author's manuscript upon acceptance for publication."

(D): Many options, preferred TBD. Researchers should use the repositories available to them, including the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) or CDC WONDER; other options are under development.

Notes: Peer-reviewed articles go in both PubMedCentral and CDC Stacks, everything else in CDC Stacks. See plan Appendix B for DMP requirements outline.
DODDepartment of DefenseWithin 12 months (A), within a reasonable time (D)(A): Defense Technical Information Center

(D):No specific guidance. Digitally formatted scientific data sets should be stored and publicly accessible to search, retrieve, and analyze; publicly releasable primary data, samples, and other supporting materials created or gathered in the course of work should be publicly accessible at no more than incremental cost and within a reasonable time.

Notes: In section 15 (Timeline and Implementation), it is mentioned in FY18 that there will be a "Central data set repository" that will "deliver data sets to users". This is in contrast to the "decentralized approach for storing data in public repositories" mentioned in section 9.2. Also of note is their mention in sections 8.3.2 and 9.2 that "metadata for scientific data will include, at a minimum, common core metadata schema" htts://project-open-data.cio.gov/.
DOEDepartment of EnergyWithin 12 months (A), with article publication (D), data sharing policy will be evaluated "beginning about three years after this policy goes into effect", or Oct 2018(A): All researchers receiving DOE funding will be required to submit metadata and a link to the full-text accepted manuscript (or the full text itself) to OSTI.

(D): Individual research offices will encourage researchers to deposit data in existing community or institutional repositories or to submit these data to the article publisher as supplemental information.

Notes: In cases where the publisher's VoR is publicly available, the Public Access Gateway for Energy and Science (PAGES) will direct the user to this VoR with a direct link to the publisher's website. In cases where the publisher does not provide public access, PAGES will direct the reader to the accepted manuscript hosted in an institutional repository (e.g. at a national laboratory or grantee institution) with a link provided by the author. In cases where the full text is not publicly accessible through publisher or institutional repositories, OSTI will host the accepted manuscript, submitted by the author, available through PAGES.

DMPs should provide a plan for making all research data displayed in publications resulting from the proposed research open, machine-readable, and digitally accessible to the public at the time of publication. This includes data that are displayed in charts, figures, images, etc. In addition, the underlying digital research data used to generate the displayed data should be made as accessible as possible to the public in accordance with the principles stated above. The published article should indicate how these data can be accessed.

DOE's Suggested Elements for a DMP
DOTDepartment of TransportationWithin 12 months (A), with article publication (D)(A): DOT National Transportation Library (NTL) digital repository no later than 12 months following publication.

(D): Researchers ensure access to final research data. Researchers will propose in the DMP where data will be deposited at time of publication.

Notes:DOT will allow the inclusion of appropriate costs for data management and access in proposals for federal funding for Scientific Research. See policy section 7.4.2 for more information.

All Digital Data Sets subject to this plan will be inventoried in the DOT Public Data Listing

DOT requires researchers to obtain/report their ORCid.
FDAFood and Drug AdministrationWithin 12 months (A), with article publication (D)(A): PubMed Central

(D): Data- or discipline-specific repositories where available. There is exploration of a data commons tool.
NASANational Aeronautics and Space AdministrationWithin 12 months (A), at the time of publication if used in charts and figures, otherwise w/i reasonable time period after publication (D)*(A): NASA PubSpace

(D): The requirement for public access to sharable data may be met by including data with the publication as supplementary material, through NASA archives, or through other means, and means of access should be indicated in the published article.

Notes: *"Reasonable time period" will be defined in the final data access plan.

A data management plan is required in proposals/project plans.
NIHNational Institutes of HealthWithin 12 months (A), at the time of article publication (appropriate timelines being explored) (D)(A): PubMed Central

(D): Existing NIH-funded data repositories or existing, appropriate, publicly accessible repositories

Notes: Points to NIH Public Access Policy 2008 as "meeting all the requirements of the OSTP Directive" for publications. While "Access/Sharing" is marked full here because it covers the PAP as well as data sharing -- the policy does not address OA journals.
NISTNational Institutes of Standards and TechnologyWithin 12 months (A), with article publication, for supporting data (D)(A): NIST's PMC interface, NIST also reserves right to shorten or lengthen the embargo period

(D):NIST Enterprise Data Inventory (EDI). Developing Common Access Platform.

Notes: Reasonable costs for data preservation and access may be included in grant proposals or project plan budgets for contracts

An "effective" DMP is required, which should address all digital data as defined by OMB Circular A-110, and explicitly address data that will support publications. Under the guidance provided in the Project Open Data component of OMB memorandum M-13-13, metadata for existing data should conform to the schema posted at https://project-open-data.cio.gov/ and be submitted to the NIST Enterprise Data Inventory (EDI), which is visible at http://www.data.gov. NIST will continue to "track and respond to changes in digital technologies" as it develops the Common Access Platform (CAP) for data distribution.
NOAANational Oceanic & Atmospheric AdministrationWithin 12 months (A) typically, "at the time of initial publication" or "no later than two years after the data are collected" (D)(A): NOAA Institutional Repository, using CDC Stacks

(D): "Short-term access may be enabled through existing NOAA program facilities and centers of data, or through grantee facilities, or through the SHared Access Research Ecosystem (SHARE)" or NOAA National Data Centers for "data worthy of long-term preservation".

Notes: "For NOAA, "scientific data" specifically means environmental data, which are defined by NOAA Administrative Order (NAO) 212-155 as "recorded and derived observations and measurements of the physical, chemical, biological, geological, and geophysical properties and conditions of the oceans, atmosphere, space environment, sun, and solid earth, as well as correlative data, such as socio-economic data, related documentation, and metadata." NAO 212-15 goes on to state that "Media, including voice recordings and photographs, may be included," but for the purposes of the NOAA PARR plan we include only digital imagery, audio recordings, or video recordings of environmental phenomena (such as recordings of animal sounds or undersea video). Numerical model outputs, and data from laboratory experiments, are included in this definition and should be considered for access and archiving."
NSFNational Science FoundationWithin 12 months (A), "exploring" at time of article publication (D)(A): NSF-PAR, the version of record or final accepted version in PDF/A format that should be available for download, reading, and analysis free of charge no later than 12 months after initial publication, with machine-readable metadata available at initial publication.

(D): Only guidance that is given is "appropriate repository as explained in the DMP"

Requires a data management plan. Be sure to check your directorate and program solicitation for further DMP guidance.
SISmithsonian Institution12 months or other negotiated period (A and supporting D)(A): Smithsonian Research Online (SRO) http://research.si.edu/ or CHORUS

(D): SRO, Approved external repository, CHORUS

Notes: This plan requires that an electronic copy or a link to a copy of the final accepted manuscript or the final publication (i.e., version of record) of each covered publication that meets the scope criteria above, as well as its supporting digital research data, shall be submitted to one or more Smithsonian-managed or Smithsonian-approved repositories either twelve months or another negotiated embargo period following official publication date unless a demonstrated special circumstance prevents the covered publication or supporting digital research data from being made publicly available.
USDAUS Department of AgricultureOnce manuscript is accepted for publication (A)(A): PubAg

(D): USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) requires a DMP with all research. They state, "increased access to scientific research results (e.g., scholarly publications, digital data sets) from NIFA-funded projects is critical to achieving NIFA's vision to catalyze transformative discoveries, education, and engagement to address agricultural challenges. Therefore, an appropriate data management plan (DMP) should be a core component of research planning for proposals submitted to NIFA."

Notes: Phased approach, with mainstream implementation targeted for 2016-2017 and DMPs to be required, likely starting January 2016. USDA will support a registry of datasets, and are continuing to explore other repository options.
USAIDUS Agency for International DevelopmentWithin 12 months (D)(A): Unknown

(D): Development Data Library (DDL)

Notes: USAID Development Data, FAQ
USGSUS Geological Surveynot more than 12 months after the official publication date (A), prior to or at the time of publication (D)(A): USGS Publications Warehouse, As part of the USGS Bureau approval process, the full-text of all USGS final manuscripts will reside in the Information Product Data System (IPDS), a National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)-certified repository that functions in part as a dark archive for all USGS-funded information products.

(D): Data associated with USGS scholarly publications and other data approved for release are currently submitted to the internal USGS data repository most appropriate to their content, level of data management needed, and dissemination method required. A trusted third-party distribution repository may be used to increase access, but the authoritative version of the data is maintained by the USGS.

Notes: USGS data are subject to Bureau approval under FSP; once approved for release, data are made available to the public in the appropriate forms and formats free-of-charge with no embargo period. More information can be found on USGS' Data Management site.
VAUS Department of Veterans AffairsWithin 12 months (A & clinical trial information) OR consistent with public interests and OMB/OSTP objectives(A): PubMed Central

(D):The results of applicable VA- funded Clinical Trials must be provided to the public through the ClinicalTrials.gov archive. Partnering with HHS, NIH, FDA, and DoD on "effective mechanisms" to make digital research data accessible to the public.

Requires a data management plan.
Agencies not subject to the OSTP memo that have data policies:

RDS gratefully acknowledges the authors of a crowdsourced table documenting these federal requirements and Columbia University’s Scholarly Communications Program; much of their content was reused and repurposed for the table above.