Compliance with NIH Public Access Policy

See also: Memo with policy details

The Director of the National Institutes of Health requires that all investigators funded by the NIH submit, or have submitted for them, an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts resulting from NIH funding to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication. These manuscripts will be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication. The NIH shall implement this public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

Important Dates

April 7, 2008: All peer-reviewed articles that arise, in whole or in part, from direct costs funded by NIH, or from NIH staff, that are accepted for publication on or after this date, must be deposited into PubMed Central.

May 25, 2008: All applications, proposals or progress reports submitted to the NIH as of this due date, or subsequent due dates, must include the PMC or NIH Manuscript Submission reference number when citing applicable articles that arise from their NIH funded research.

Scope of the Policy

The policy applies to all peer-reviewed articles when the publication results from:

The work was directly funded at least in part by an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 (starting October 1, 2007);
The work was directly funded at least in part by an NIH contract signed on or after April 7, 2008;
The work was directly funded at least in part by the NIH Intramural Program; or
The NIH paid at least part of the author's salary.

Compliance with the Policy

Complying with the policy involves three elements:

Obtaining copyright clearance from publishers
Submitting the article to PubMed Central
Subsequent citation of the article

1. Obtaining Copyright Clearance

An author can obtain the necessary copyright clearance to submit an article to PubMed Central in one of three ways:

Publish in journals that do not claim an exclusive right to the copyright of the article, but instead exercise some limited right minimally sufficient to allow publication.
Publish in journals that allow authors to comply with the NIH policy.

The NIH maintains a list of journals that automatically deposit to PMC
( http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm)

Amend the publication agreement with an author's addendum that includes language allowing deposit of the article into PMC. Examples of such addenda are available from the following entities:
- UM Copyright Office ( http://www.copyright.umich.edu/addendum.html)
- NIH (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm#c3)
- Science Commons (http://scholars.sciencecommons.org/)

2. Submission to PubMed Central

An article arising from NIH funding must be submitted to PMC within 12 months of being accepted for publication. This can happen in one of two ways:

Publish in a journal that submits articles to PMC on behalf of the author.
- The NIH maintains a list of journals that submit articles on behalf of the author
  (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm)
- The author will still have to sign into the NIH Manuscript Submission System (http://www.nihms.nih.gov/) to approve the article
Submission by the author provided the author has reserved the right to do so.
- Submission is done through the NIH Manuscript Submission System (http://www.nihms.nih.gov/)
- Find comprehensive instructions at this site.
  (http://www.nihms.nih.gov/web-help/index.html)

3. Future Citation

Beginning May 25, 2008, any citation in NIH applications, proposals, or progress reports to an article authored or co-authored by you, or arising from your NIH award, and subject to the Policy, must include the PMC reference number for that article.

Last reviewed: March, 2008