Adam Jones

tldr: Government policymakers want to read research, but lack journal access. Your research needs to be open access if you want policymakers to read it, and you should prefer citing open access resources to improve epistemic legibility. Policymakers don’t have access Many seem to assume that government policymakers would have ready access to relevant scientific research. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. At multiple major US and UK government departments, the EU and the UN, staff often can't access the academic papers they need for their work. This sadly even includes those directly responsible for science and technology policy. In one case, I heard that a Chief Scientific Advisor had to rely on Sci-Hub to get papers. In another, I heard a ministerial office’s policy of taking on interns was driven by wanting to use their university credentials to access papers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this became particularly apparent. Someone close to response efforts told me that policymakers frequently had to ask academic secondees to access research articles for them. This created delays and inefficiencies during a crisis where speed was essential. Policymakers would benefit from access Evidence-based policymaking requires access to evidence. Direct access would let policymakers validate claims and follow citation trails themselves. This especially matters when evaluating uncertain or conflicting recommendations. The usual counterargument is that research flows through a pipeline: academic journals to think tank pieces to government policymakers. Think tanks can add value here by: filtering out noise, translating academic writing to policy speak, and analysing the policy implications of the science. While this can work, it fails in several scenarios: * It adds delays. This is particularly bad in crises, where this model usually breaks down. Science and technology policy also often moves quickly, so even in non-crisis situations policymakers really need more u