funding research
Researchers often need money to conduct their research. In the example from What is Scholarly Communication?, the researcher would need money to travel to central Canada and stay there to make observations and collect data. And in order to collect data, they'd probably need technology, like laptops, software to input data, and potentially equipment to collect samples. After they travel back to their university, they would probably need software to analyze the data and access to labs and lab equipment to study the collected samples. All of that, costs money.
How do researchers get money?
Researchers apply for grants to fund their research projects. There are lots of institutions that provide grant funding, including private organizations, non-profit organizations, and local/state/federal government agencies. Once a researcher identifies the grant they want to apply for, they begin writing their application. This is a notoriously time-consuming process, as (understandably) organizations don't want to just give money away willy nilly--they want to know that they're funding a legitimate research project that will produce results. Successful grant applications are detailed, thorough, and have meticulous budget proposals because again, organizations want to know exactly why you're using the money for, on what timeline, and for what purpose.
If a researcher successfully applies for a grant, do they just get a check delivered to them?
No, and that's probably for the best. At universities, there are offices dedicated to managing grants. Funds get delivered to that office, and the researcher works with the office to disburse and pay for approved, research-related expenses.
Requirements that come with public funding
Research projects that were funded by a government agency (with public dollars) have special requirements on what happens to the final research product (in most cases, a published paper).
In 2013, the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) released a memorandum that required federal agencies who spent more than $100 million in research funding to "support" increased public access to the published papers resulting from the research. Before this, taxpayers were funding research that was then made "available" behind paywalls--restricting access to only those who could afford to pay for it or who had special access through an academic library.
So the 2013 memorandum went halfway and said: researchers and publishers have the option to paywall published papers for 12 months, but after that, it must be freely available to the public. (Why? Publishers like being the exclusive provider to research because it drives revenue).
During the outset of the covid pandemic in 2020-2021, researchers from all sectors--government, industry, and academics--agreed to adopt an informal policy to ditch the 12-month paywall option and make all covid research available to the public--and each other--immediately without delay. In 2022, the OSTP described this as an example of "how delivering immediate public access to federally funded research publications and data can provide near real-time returns on American taxpayer investments in science and technology."
So in 2022, the OSTP released an updated memorandum saying that this should be the formal practice moving forward: immediate public access to publicly-funded research.
Federal agencies had until December 31, 2024 to update their funding policies for when they fund future research projects, and those policies had to go into effect no later than December 31, 2025.
But wait, there's more
There are still some complexities to this. Most federal agencies have updated their policies to require that a version of a published paper go into a designated public repository immediately, but that version doesn't have to be the final version.
In the example from What is Scholarly Communication?, the researcher submitted a draft to the journal for consideration before undergoing peer review, where reviewers gave feedback and the researcher revised their paper to address the feedback.
The original version that the researcher submitted at the beginning is called the Author's Submitted Manuscript. In this version, the researcher has already conducted all the research--the data collection and analysis--but this version isn't the final, peer-reviewed and revised version (which is called the Author's Accepted Manuscript).
Many federal agencies have said that the Author's Submitted Manuscript is the minimum required version that must be made publicly available. Researchers and publishers can choose to make the final version available, but they're not required.
This isn't ideal, but publishers weren't too happy with the 2022 memorandum because it means lost revenue, and the scholarly publishing ecosystem is fragile (more on this in another post), so there had to be some compromises.
At the very least, the data and conclusions should be the same in the Author's Submitted Manuscript (before peer-review) as the Author's Accepted Manuscript (after peer-review) because peer reviewers don't give feedback on the actual data and conclusions (unless they suspect data fabrication or AI written conclusions--more on this in another post!). Peer reviewers are there to help researchers present their data and conclusions in a way that facilitates that conversation among scholars I talked about in What is Scholarly Communication?. So all in all, the 2022 updated memorandum still moved scholarly communication in the right direction.