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Federal Public Access Policies: DoD Policy

An overview of the current and future landscape of US Public Access Policies.

Current DoD Public Access Policy

A circular emblem with a blue background, featuring a bald eagle with outstretched wings holding three arrows in its talons, surrounded by a ring of 13 white stars. Encircling the emblem is a gold ring inscribed with the words 'Department of Defense' at the top and 'United States of America' at the bottom.

  • All peer-reviewed publications that are the result of DoD funding must be made publicly available in the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). Current policy allows for a 12-month embargo on publications.
  • All scientific research supported by DoD funding are required to have a Data Management and Sharing Plan to help increase access, where appropriate, to the data underlying scholarly publications. 

Updates to DOD Policy in Response to the Nelson Memo

All unclassified, peer-reviewed scholarly publications that are the result of DoD funding are required to be made publicly-available in the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). The major change to this policy that will go into effect on December 31, 2025 is that these publications can no longer be embargoed for up to a year after publication. The DoD is also actively investigating methods to make these scholarly publications machine-readable to improve accessibility. 

Keeping with previous Public Access Policies, the Department of Defense requires all grant applicants to submit a Data Management and Sharing Plan. In response to the Nelson Memo, the DoD plans to implement updates to the nature of data storing and sharing based on whether data are associated with a publication. 

  • For data underlying peer-reviewed scholarly publications:
    • If the data are not subject to privacy, confidentiality, security, intellectual property, or other restrictions, then they should be made publicly-available in a repository at the time of publication with the appropriate metadata.  
  • For data not associated with peer-reviewed scholarly publications:
    • Data not associated with a publication will not be made publicly available. 
    • The DoD plans to ensure that these types of data are deposited in the DoD Data Set Directory, which is available to DoD employees and contractors only, or in other secure repositories as appropriate.  

For more information about DoD Data Management and Sharing Plans, please contact the CSHL Research Engagement and Data Curator: Jacqueline Gunther, Ph.D..

Publications: When a publication is deposited into DTIC, the DoD already has a system in place to collect metadata and assign a persistent identifier (PID) to each article. 


Scientific Data: Current policy allows for identifiers to be assigned to datasets when deposited, but the DoD plans to strengthen the infrastructure for collecting persistent identifiers and metadata associated with data. 


Researcher Digital Persistent Identifier: The DoD, as part of the DoE Researcher Contributor Identifier (ORCID) consortium, requires all researchers supported by federal funds to obtain an ORCID, which is a researcher digital persistent identifier. 


PIDs for Grants & Awards: When appropriate, the DoD assigns identifiers for awards, and plans to consider joining a service that assigns PIDs to awards (2024 DoD Implementation Plan, page 9).