Legal Pathways to Open Access

Legal Pathways to Open Access is a joint project of Authors Alliance and SPARC to study critical issues in access to scholarly research. Among the goals of the year-long project are a series of white papers addressing Federal public access policy, updating the SPARC Author Addendum, and studying and making recommendations on institutional intellectual property policies. This page will host the white papers, supporting documents, and other resources generated by and related to the project.

SPARC and Authors Alliance gratefully acknowledge the support of Arcadia, which enabled this work.

Practical Guidance on Federal Public Access Policy Implementation

As federal agencies such as the NIH implement their public access policies, we are working to collect information from researchers/authors, librarians, administrators and others to understand and address challenges they face.

  • Read our FAQ here, which was developed to help authors in the context of the acceleration of the implementation of the NIH public access policy to become effective July 1, 2025.
  • Fill out our survey here to share your experiences with the rollout of Federal public access policies across funding agencies. This form is meant to collect experiences of authors/researchers, librarians, administrators and others so that we can develop new resources and tools on these issues.

White papers

I. Open Access and U.S. Federal Information Policy.

This paper is a study of the Federal Purpose License (FPL) within the larger context of Federal public access mandates and especially the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy memo of August 25, 2022 (the “Nelson Memo”). The paper provides general background on copyright and open access, and then analyzes the language, regulatory history, and purpose of the FPL. Suggested citation: Eric Harbeson, Authors Alliance and SPARC, Open Access and U.S. Federal Information Policy, Legal Pathways to Open Access white paper no. 1 (2024). https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5020096

The paper: PDF (SSRN)PDF (SocArXiv) • HTML | One-page summary

Appendix A: Text of 2 C.F.R. § 200.315 (see also the version of record) | Appendix B: Agency implementations of 2 C.F.R. § 200.315(b)

II. The Legal Basis For U.S. Federal Public Access Mandates

The second white paper in the series examines the legal landscape surrounding the Federal Purpose License and Federal public access policies. The paper asks, “are Federal public access policies legal?” Answer: yes. The policies and the FPL are valid delegations of Congress’s constitutionally-vested powers. The paper considers—and rejects—possible objections arising from the Constitution’s Spending Clause, Free Speech Clause, and Takings Clause, as well as objections based in the sometimes ambiguous power of Federal agencies (including a discussion of the recently overturned Chevron doctrine).

The paper: PDF (SSRN)PDF (SocArXiv)

Future white papers

Two more white papers are planned. They will be posted here as they are released. Watch our blog for announcements!

External resources

Federal Purpose License fact sheet (HELIOS)

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