Towards advancing policy implementation in open science: Insights from U.S. federal agencies on equitable public access

Abstract

There is a dearth of research that provides robust empirical studies of policy implementation in the context of open science. In the United States, a series of Presidential Memoranda issued by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) lays much of the federal policy foundation for open science, including a requirement for equitable access to federally funded public research. Benefits from research results and scientific data are often constrained by barriers to access, creating inequities in knowledge sharing. Hence, equitable public access to research results is still lacking. This study provides an exploratory qualitative study of practical challenges, organizational tensions, and tradeoffs experienced by agency actors in U.S. federal agencies seeking to implement equitable public access. We contribute to further research towards advancing policy implementation in open science by offering insights into how U.S. federal agencies understand and implement equitable public access. Our study also contributes to the practice of implementing policy mandates regardless of political administrations by increasing government agency actors' awareness of four dimensions latent in the implementation process: striving with ambiguity, overcoming fragmentation, reducing disparity, and mitigating perplexity. • We explored advancing the policy implementation process in open science. • Policy implementation in open science necessitates an iterative, adaptive process. • We found four dimensions that diminish policy implementation for equitable public access.