NIH Public Access Compliance

Scope of Policy.  The Policy Applies to Any Paper that is peer-reviewed and is accepted for publication in a journal on or after April 7, 2008; and arises from any direct funding from an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008, or;

• Any direct funding from an NIH contract signed on or after April 7 2008, or;
• Any direct funding from the NIH Intramural Program, or;
• An NIH Employee.

Compliance.  There are three actions grantees must take to comply with the policy:

1.  Address Copyright.  Authors of articles arising from NIH funds are responsible for ensuring that publishing agreements allow for full compliance with the NIH policy.

2.  Submit Article.  Authors must submit to PubMed Central an electronic version of every peer-reviewed article arising from NIH research funds, once an article is accepted for publication. NIH has worked with publishers to develop several ways to submit articles:

1. The author or someone in their organization may deposit a copy of the peer-reviewed manuscript in the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system.  The link to this is http://www.nihms.nin.gov/ [1] Author verifies content.
2. The journal may offer to send the peer-reviewed manuscript files to the NIHMS. Author verifies content.
3. Publishing in a PubMed Central Journal. No additional effort required from the author. See: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm [2] for a list of these journals.

3.  Cite.  Authors must include PubMed Central ID numbers in NIH applications and reports when citing their articles covered by the policy.