USGS Webinar: Open Access Publications and Data Requirements
USGS will host a webinar on updated federal requirements for open access to publications and data resulting from WRRA-funded research. This session is relevant to Institute Directors, grants administrators, and principal investigators.
Open Access Publications and Data Requirements
Thursday, May 7, 2026 | 1:30 – 2:30 PM Central
See slides and recording here.
(This webinar will take place during the May Staff Network regular meeting time and will be recorded).
This webinar will cover what Institutes need to know about federal directives now in effect for WRRA FY2026 awards.These directives/guidance documents include:
- The 2022 OSTP Public Access Memo, effective December 31, 2025, which eliminates the 12-month embargo and requires publications and supporting data to be freely available at the time of publication.
- The USGS Public Access Plan (ver. 2.0), effective December 31, 2025, which establishes specific requirements for availability of final manuscripts and data funded in whole or in part by federal monies, as well as Data Management Plan content and metadata standards.
- Executive Order 14303, Restoring Gold Standard Science (signed May 23, 2025), and DOI Secretarial Order 3441, Implementing Requirements of EO 14303 (signed August 29, 2025), which defines nine tenets of scientific integrity – including reproducibility, transparency, and conflict-of-interest management – that federal agencies are extending to grantees.
The webinar will discuss how the above directives/guidance documents are to be implemented with WRRIs. Topics will include what counts as timely data release, which repositories satisfy USGS requirements, what must be in a compliant Data Management Plan, how these requirements flow to sub-awarded PIs, and what the consequences of noncompliance are.
Questions may be submitted in advance to Christian Schmidt, Program Coordinator, or during the session via the Teams chat.
We encourage you to share this invitation broadly with your grants office staff and any PIs currently funded under a WRRA base grant.
