Currently, in the US, any research conducted with public grant funds must be available to the public. That means data and also any papers written by the principal investigators. This is a good rule and a good law. There are some exceptions, but they are very rare. The academic institution or principal investigators can no longer sell their research papers through those third-party scholarly article companies. However, often faculties and university research centers that are funded by a grant or a foundation are able to keep those research results and documents for a fee or perhaps simply hide them entirely as intellectual property.
Still, if it’s a publicly funded university, I think I still have a problem with that, insofar as the principal investigators are on the institution’s payroll and that institution is partially publicly funded. This debate has been going on for a while and has been in the news often when someone unlocks that research and submits it online to the world. Interestingly, the Russians, Chinese and others often spy on these university and university research centers, so they already have the information, while our own innovators, entrepreneurs, scientists and corporations do not. Think about that for a moment as I continue this dialogue.
Recently, an interesting article appeared in the New York Times (Sunday Review) titled; “Should all research articles be free?” by Kate Murphy, published on March 12, 2016, questioning the blocking of research papers and the charging of huge fees for magazine articles.
Many years ago there was a breach in the system at MIT where all research articles, usually for sale, were put on the web for all to see. Some applauded this type of “moral piracy”, while others condemned it as theft. Whether it was a Robin Hood law from the modern electronic age or not is hard to tell in hindsight with all the new laws requiring publicly funded research to be free to citizens (unless it involves national security). However, the Electronic Freedom Foundation is pleased to report that unlocking research articles is fairer than ever, even if they admit that there is still work to be done and warn that the situation will require ongoing monitoring.
If universities keep the data under lock and key and we taxpayers pay other universities to do the same research, when it is already known, we waste money on duplicating research: how does this help our nation, advance progress, or advance the technology for our future? . It’s up to you.