In June 2025, Sens. Heinrich (D-NM) and Rounds (R-SD) launched the American Science Acceleration Project (ASAP), a bipartisan Senate initiative that aims to make American science “ten times faster” by 2030 through five pillars: data infrastructure, computing resources, AI development, enhanced collaboration, and streamlined regulatory processes.
The initiative reflects concerns about maintaining U.S. scientific leadership amid international competition. Its sweeping goals—from curing cancer to deploying fusion energy—echo familiar patterns of ambitious congressional science initiatives. ASAP has attracted a coalition of over 70 supporting organizations spanning academia and industry, demonstrating significant community engagement and appetite for targeted legislative action that could address the specific barriers currently limiting scientific productivity.
SPARC’s Three Recommendations
The initiative’s sponsors issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking recommendations on mechanisms to help achieve ASAP’s main objectives. SPARC’s response centered on three main suggestions:
- Codify Open Access Requirements: Congress should pass legislation making the 2022 OSTP memorandum permanent, requiring immediate public access to federally funded research with explicit reuse rights. This provides legal certainty beyond executive policy shifts.
- Mandate Persistent Identifiers: As AI becomes more prevalent in research, we need robust systems to track attribution and research lineage. This infrastructure becomes critical when AI systems are analyzing vast datasets and making cross-disciplinary connections.
- Integrate Open Education: Enable rapid incorporation of new research into educational materials without licensing barriers, creating a knowledge pipeline from lab to classroom.
What’s Next
Senate offices will now review responses from stakeholders. Whether ASAP ultimately translates into meaningful policy changes or remains just another ambitious initiative depends partly on whether lawmakers focus on fundamental access barriers rather than just increased funding.
Our submission provides a roadmap for leveraging open science principles to achieve genuine acceleration. The good news: fixing access problems doesn’t require revolutionary breakthroughs or massive new spending. It requires recognizing that taxpayer-funded research should serve as a dynamic foundation for continuous innovation rather than proprietary assets locked behind institutional barriers.
SPARC’s full response to the ASAP Request for Information, including detailed appendices addressing each pillar, is available here.