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Administration for Community Living (ACL) 

Plan To Expand Public Access To Peer-Reviewed Scholarly 

Publications And Scientific Data

Introduction 

The Administration for Community Living (ACL) is an Operating Division within the Department 

of Health and Human Services (HHS). ACL’s mission is to maximize the independence, wellbeing, and health of older adults, people with disabilities across the lifespan, and their families 

and caregivers. ACL strives to achieve this mission, in part, by funding research mainly through 

discretionary grants administered by the National Institute on Disability, Independent living, 

and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR)—a Center within ACL. Making ACL-funded research 

results available at no cost through peer-reviewed publications and scientific data will enable 

the use of research-based information by various user communities to advance practices, 

policies, and systems to advance ACL’s mission.

ACL has an existing Public Access Plan that describes requirements for making peer-reviewed 

publications and scientific data that resulted from ACL-funded research publicly available. This 

existing plan is based on guidance in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)’s 

February 22, 2013 memorandum entitled “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded 

Scientific Research” (2013 Memo). ACL implemented its existing Public Access Plan in two 

phases. Public access to peer-reviewed publication requirements have been implemented since 

October 1, 2016, and public access to scientific data requirements have been implemented 

since October 1, 2017. These current requirements include making peer-reviewed scholarly 

publications publicly available within 12 months from the publication date and making 

applicable scientific data collected through the course of a grant award publicly available within 

24 months from the award end date. These public access requirements are aimed at extramural 

research as ACL does not have an intramural research program. 

On August 25, 2022, OSTP issued a memorandum entitled “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and 

Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research.” (2022 Memo) The 2022 Memo directed 

federal agencies to update their public access plan to expand public access to peer-reviewed 

scholarly publications and scientific data. ACL plans to address the elements in the 2022 Memo 

as described below, and plans to coordinate and collaborate with other federal agencies 

through the NSTC Subcommittee on Open Science for implementing aspects of its plan.

The expansion of public access requirements as listed in this plan will be incorporated into an 

updated ACL Public Access Policy. The updated policy will be released by December 31, 2024,

and in effect by December 31, 2025.
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Expanding public access to peer-reviewed scholarly publications 

Element #1 

Indicate how peer-reviewed scholarly publications will be made publicly accessible: 

Plan to address element #1 

ACL will continue to make peer-reviewed scholarly publications publicly available through the 

National Institute of Health’s PubMed central (PMC). We have an existing interagency 

agreement (IAA) with PMC that has been and will be renewed yearly to ensure public access to 

ACL-funded peer-reviewed scholarly publications. PMC has experience in releasing peerreviewed scholarly publications with no embargo, having provided services to a number of

nonfederal funders that employed similar requirements. PMC has indicated that a similar work 

process can be developed and used for ACL to meet new OSTP requirements as part of PMC’s

services provided through the IAA.

Element #2 

Indicate how to maximize equitable reach of public access to peer-reviewed scholarly 

publications, including by providing free online access to peer-reviewed scholarly publications 

in formats that allow for machine readability and enabling broad accessibility through assistive 

devices.

Plan to address element #2 

PMC employs machine-readability format for peer-reviewed scholarly publications and their 

contents are accessible through assistive devices, as per the World Wide Web Consortium 

(W3C) Accessible Rich Internet Applications Recommendation and Section 508 of the 

Rehabilitation Act ( see https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/about/accessibility/). Peer-reviewed 

scholarly publications in PMC can be accessed by the public at no cost to users. ACL will rely on 

PMC for their continual improvement of accessibility via technical assistance to users and their 

plan to develop improved guidance for making more submitted content accessible to all.

Element #3 

Describe the circumstances or prerequisites needed to make the publications freely and 

publicly available by default, including any use and reuse rights, and which restrictions including 

attribution, may apply.
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Plan to address element #3 

ACL will develop guidance to be included in its updated Public Access Policy, Notices of Funding 

Opportunity, and grant Terms and Conditions. This language will describe to authors of peerreviewed scholarly publications that resulted from ACL-funded research, that they must 

maintain necessary rights to share their final manuscript with the public via PMC. Final 

manuscript is defined as an author's final manuscript of a peer-reviewed paper accepted for 

journal publication, including all modifications from the peer-review process. We will also 

instruct the authors to share their final manuscript with an appropriate level of Creative 

Commons or equivalent license that will allow the re-use of the publications with appropriate 

attributions. 

Expanding public access to scientific data 

Element #4 

Scientific data underlying peer-reviewed scholarly publications resulting from federally funded 

research should be made freely available and publicly accessible by default at the time of 

publication. 

Plan to address element #4 

ACL’s current policy does not require sharing a subset of scientific data underlying each

scholarly publication. Rather, the current policy requires awardees to share all applicable 

scientific data sets, regardless of whether they are used to develop peer-reviewed scholarly 

publications, within 24 months after the award end date. 

ACL will revise its public access requirements to require authors of any peer-reviewed scholarly 

publications resulting from ACL- funded research to publish the underlying scientific data at the 

time of publication. To align with the FAIR data principles, ACL will add instruction for the 

authors to deposit the peer-reviewed scholarly publication’s underlying data at the InterUniversity Consortium of Political and Social Research (I C P S R) -- ACL’s designated repository. 

The I C P S R’s characteristics are aligned with the Desirable Characteristics of Data 

Repositories for Federally Funded Research. 

Element #5 

Federal agencies are to develop approaches and timelines for sharing other federally funded 

scientific data that are not associated with peer-reviewed scholarly publications.
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Plan to address element #5 

ACL’s current policy requires that awardees share applicable scientific data resulting from ACLfunded research in their entirety (all data sets resulted from ACL-funded research), no later 

than 24 months after the end date of the award. This requirement is not contingent upon 

whether the data are used to develop peer review scholarly publications. 

We plan to continue this requirement, with the addition of the new requirement on immediate 

sharing of the underlying (subset of) data associated with peer-reviewed scholarly publications, 

as outlined in element #4. We believe that enabling users to have access to secondary use of 

full data sets will meaningfully and optimally expand the use of data that would accelerate 

discoveries and generate new scientific knowledge. 

Element #6 

Federal agencies should provide guidance to researchers that ensures the digital repository

used is aligned, to the extent applicable, with the National Science and Technology Council 

document entitled “Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories for Federally Funded 

Research.”

Plan to address element #6 

I C P S R, ACL’s currently designated repository for data sharing, is aligned with the desirable 

characteristics of data repositories indicated in the NSTC guidance indicated above. 

I C P S R provides open and equitable access to all users. I C P S R web pages comply with the 

U.S. Government’s Section 508 Standards for web-based intranet and internet information and 

applications, and with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, level AA. 

(https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/datamanagement/policies/access.html) 

As per ACL’s current public access policy, researchers may request to use different repositories

for data sharing. In doing so, they are required to justify why it is not possible to deposit their 

data at I C P S R and to provide evidence that the alternate repositories of their choosing have

comparable characteristics to I C P S R. I C P S R characteristics were used as a benchmark 

previously because ACL policy was developed prior to the availability of the NSTC guidance. For 

our updated policy, ACL will refer to the NSTC document as a reference for researchers to 

identify alternate data repositories, should they provide acceptable justification of why 

depositing data at I C P S R is not possible/appropriate.

Element #7 

Agency public access plan and policies should clarify that federal researchers must follow 

federal laws and OMB policies that govern federal agencies’ information management practices 
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and protect certain type of data, to the extent that the scientific data created by, collected by, 

under the control or direction of, or maintained by the federal researchers is subject to those 

laws and policies.

Plan to address element #7 

Consistent with the definition stated in the 2013 OSTP Memorandum, ACL defined scientific 

data as “digitally recorded factual material commonly accepted in the scientific community as 

necessary to validate research findings including data sets used to support scholarly 

publications. Scientific data do not include laboratory notebooks, preliminary analyses, drafts of 

scientific papers, plans for future research, peer review reports, communications with 

colleagues, or physical objects, such as laboratory specimens.” ACL also indicated in the existing 

policy that, for the purpose of data sharing, the following types of data are excluded from the 

current data sharing requirements: personally identifiable data; proprietary trade data; and 

other data whose release is limited by law, regulation, security requirements, or policy.

ACL plans to update its definition of scientific data to align with the definition indicated in the 

2022 OSTP Memo, as “recorded factual material commonly accepted in the scientific 

community as of sufficient quality to validate and replicate research findings. Such scientific 

data do not include laboratory notebooks, preliminary analyses, case report forms, drafts of 

scientific papers, plans for future research, peer-reviews, communications with colleagues, or 

physical objects and materials, such as laboratory specimens, artifacts, or field notes.”

ACL will maintain the exclusion language of “For the purpose of data sharing, the following 

types of data are excluded from the current data sharing requirements: personally identifiable 

data; proprietary trade data; and other data whose release is limited by law, regulation, 

security requirements, or policy.” 

We will also add an explicit statement, modeled after NIH language, that “ACL-funded 

researchers should manage and share data in ways consistent with all applicable federal, Tribal, 

state, and local laws, regulations, statutes, guidance, and institutional policies.”

In addition, we plan to include specific language for the data sharing exemption given to SBIR 

awardees (SBIR phase I and II), as they may withhold applicable data for 20 years after the 

award date as per the Small Business Administration’s Policy Directive (see 

https://www.sbir.gov/sites/default/files/SBA_SBIR_STTR_POLICY_DIRECTIVE_OCT_2020_0.p

df ). 

Element #8 

Public access plans should outline the policies that federal agencies will use to establish

researcher responsibilities on how federally funded scientific data will be managed and shared, 

including: 
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Element #8.1 

Details describing any potential legal, privacy, ethical, technical, intellectual property, or 

security limitations, and/or any other potential restrictions or limitations on data access, use, 

and disclosure, including those defined in the terms and conditions of funding agreements or 

awards or that convey from a data use agreement or stipulations of an Institutional Review 

Board.

Plan to address element 8.1

In the current ACL policy, researchers are allowed to provide a rationale for not sharing some or 

all of their scientific data as an element of their Data Management Plan (DMP). We expect 

researchers to provide justification based on any potential legal, privacy, ethical, technical, 

intellectual property, or security limitations, and/or any other potential restrictions or 

limitations on data access, use, and disclosure as applicable in their cases. The proposed 

limitation and rationales submitted by awardees will be reviewed and approved on a case-bycase basis. 

As part of the DMP, researchers are also required to describe a plan to address the study 

participants’ consent process to enable the deidentified data to be shared broadly for future 

research.

Element #8.2 

Describe plans to maximize appropriate sharing of the federally funded scientific data identified in 

Section 3(a) of this memorandum, such as providing risk-mitigated opportunities for limited data access. 

Plan to address element #8.2 

Currently, ACL only requires sharing of deidentified data. Should there be a possible need to 

share data that present higher risks of participants’ identification (even with de-identified data)

or other confidentiality risks, I C P S R provides several restricted-use data dissemination 

options to mitigate such risks. These options include secured download, virtual data enclave, 

physical data enclave, restricted online analysis, and delayed dissemination (see 

https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/deposit/confidentiality.html) that researchers can 

use, as appropriate. 

Element #8.3 

Indicate the specific online digital repository or repositories where the researcher expects to

deposit their relevant data, consistent with the federal agency’s guidelines.
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Plan to address element #8.3 

ACL plans to continue its designation of I C P S R as the preferred repository to deposit both 

data underlying peer-reviewed scholarly publications and full data sets. I C P S R characteristics 

are aligned with those indicated in the Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories for 

Federally Funded Research. 

Element #9 

Federal agencies should allow researchers to include reasonable publication costs and costs 

associated with submission, curation, management of data, and special handling instructions as 

allowable expenses in all research budgets. 

Plan to address element #9 

ACL currently allows researchers to include expenses in the grant’s budget related to 

publication costs as well as costs associated with submission, curation, and management of 

scientific data. We also instruct researchers to indicate expenses related to data archiving and 

sharing in their Data Management plan. ACL plans to continue to allow such costs to be 

included as part of the grant’s budget going forward.