Public Access in Transition: Nelson Memo & the Future of Open Scholarship

In response to the memorandum issued in 2022 by the White House of Science & Technology Policy (also known as “Nelson memo”), federal agencies are actively revising, developing, finalizing, and announcing public access policies that will further expand access to federally funded research. The NIH is taking the lead, with its revised public access policy having gone into effect on July 1. 

These changes raise important questions: What will compliance look like in practice? How should faculty, researchers, and institutions position themselves to meet new requirements? What is the status of policy development across agencies? How have publishers responded to these new policies? And what role will libraries play in supporting campus-wide compliance? 

This panel brings together leading experts in open scholarship policy and infrastructure to explore the practical and policy dimensions of these questions: 

• Dave Hansen, Executive Director of Authors Alliance, will discuss the critical role of the federal purpose license and its implications for sustainable and lawful public access. 
• Peter Suber, Senior Advisor on Open Access at Harvard library and Director of the Harvard Open Access Project at the Berkman Klein Center, will provide insights into the evolution of public access policies across presidential administrations and the lessons we can draw from past transitions. 
• Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC, will provide a high-level view of current developments in policies related to open access, open data, and open education—and what they signal for the future. 

Join us for three expert presentations, followed by a moderated Q&A session where you’ll have the opportunity to engage directly with the panelists on the implementation of the Nelson Memo and how libraries can play a key role in supporting compliance and advancing open scholarship.

--

This event is part of Open Access Week 2025, taking place from October 20-26. This year's theme is, "Who Owns Our Knowledge?" To explore this question, Harvard Library is hosting events that ask in a time of disruption, how can communities reassert control over the knowledge they produce? Find all Open Access Week 2025 events.