The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has had a Public Access policy in effect since 2008, enabling NIH-funded research to be made openly available to the world via PubMed Central (for information about compliance with the NIH policy visit our NIH Public Access Policy guide). This successful policy inspired a broader implementation of Public Access policies across the federal government.
On February 22, 2013, the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memo to Federal agencies funding over $100 million in research and development, to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the Federal Government.
This was followed on August 25, 2022, with a new memorandum. The OSTP guidance recommends the removal of the 12-months delay before federally funded research publications become publicly available; it directs that publications' supporting data should be made publicly accessible; and it will bring all federal agencies in alignment with with this open access publishing policy. For more information see this page.
The U.S. Federal government maintains a page with the details of each agency’s plan and effective date – including those that are already active like NIH, and other agencies who are intending to launch their policies in the future. For up to date information, view the Implementation of Public Access Programs in Federal Agencies page.
Funders worldwide have implemented public/open access policies for the research they are funding. This is the case for national funding agencies, such as cOAlition S, an international consortium of funders, and for private foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
To find out which funders have an public/open access policy you can search ROARMAP, a registry of open access repository mandates and policies, or the Open-access mandate article in Wikipedia.
Remember to budget for open access publishing when you apply for grants!