2/ Three highlights:

* In general, with few exceptions, funders could not pay #APCs. § 200.461. (This decides the question still under consideration at the #NIH, and applies the answer to NIH and all other covered agencies.)

* Grants could be terminated "mid-award" for "discretionary reasons" including decisions by political appointees that the grants no longer serve agency priorities. § 200.340.

* Grants "must, where applicable, demonstrably advance the President's policy priorities." They must not encourage racial preferences or illegal immigration, deny that sex is binary, or promote "anti-American values". When multiple grant applications are equally strong, "preference…should be given to institutions with lower indirect cost rates." Grantees must commit to follow existing guidance on #GoldStandardScience. "Senior [political] appointees…must not ministerially ratify or routinely defer to the recommendations of others [like peer reviewers], but must instead use their independent judgment when evaluating Federal award proposals." § 200.205.

#DefendResearch #Funding #Trump #TrumpVResearch #USPol #USPolitics

Update. Also see the excellent #SPARC response to the #GAO report.
https://sparcopen.org/news/2026/sparc-statement-on-gao-report-gao-26-107738-federal-research-publishing-costs-may-2026/

"We urge Congress and federal agencies to:
1. Distinguish public access from pay-to-publish…
2. Recognize that pay-to-publish doesn’t just cost the government and taxpayers more; it compromises the science it purports to support…
3. Decline to treat current market conditions as fixed…."

#APCs #OpenAccess #ScholComm #USPol #USPolitics

Update. Another article made it through peer review (at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons) leading with two false generalizations, that (all or most) #OpenAccess journals charge #APCs and that (all or most) paid APCs are paid by authors.
https://journals.lww.com/jaaos/abstract/9900/the_open_versus_closed_access_publication.1671.aspx
(#paywalled)

Most OA journals are #DiamondOA and charge no APCs.
http://www.doaj.org/

Most paid APCs are paid by funders or employers, not by authors out of pocket. (Footnote: The evidence is clearer for the global north than the global south.)
https://suber.pubpub.org/pub/j1jk6hu9

On the plus side, the article reports that in field of orthopaedic surgery, OA articles have higher citation counts and altmetric scores than non-OA articles.

#Medicine #OACA #OpenAccessCitationAdvantage

Update. The passage in the #Trump budget criticizing expensive #subscriptions and #APCs (previous post, this thread) triggered a debate in the House of Representatives.

"US lawmakers intensify scrutiny of scientific-publishing practices."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01251-y

"From ‘paper mills’ that sell authorships on fake or low-quality research papers to the costs associated with open-access publishing, US lawmakers are paying increasing attention to widely debated issues in scientific publishing. In a rare show of unity, members of the US House of Representatives from both sides of the political aisle agreed at a hearing that these issues deserve more attention from government — but there was less unity on what the solutions should be."

#OpenAccess #Publishing #ScholComm

Update. Here's the key passage from the new #Trump budget proposing a "Government-Wide Prohibition on Publishing and Subscription Fees." See p. 17.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/budget_fy2027.pdf

"The Budget ends the diversion of research dollars to high priced publishers across the Government. The Budget prohibits the use of Federal funds for expensive subscriptions to academic journals and prohibitively high publishing costs unless required by Federal statute or approved in advance by a Federal agency. Research funded by taxpayers should be publicly accessible; yet many publications charge the Government to both publish and to access the same research study. There are numerous low-cost outlets to make federally-funded research publicly available."

h/t Jim O'Donnell

#APCs #DoubleDipping #OpenAccess #Publishing #ScholComm #Subscriptions