eRA Commons Service Desk
phone: 1-866-504-9552 or
1-301-402-7469
NIHMS Help Desk:
nihms-help@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
My NCBI Support Center (lower right corner when logged in)
Write to the Help Desk
NIH Policy general questions
PublicAccess@nih.gov
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) passed its Public Access Policy on April 7, 2008 in order to advance science and improve human health. The Policy states that all peer-reviewed articles NIH contributes funds to must be made publicly available on PubMed Central.
PubMed Central is a free, full text repository of journal articles, and is different from PubMed, which contains references and abstracts only.
The policy applies to any journal article that meets these criteria:
See additional applicability guidelines and Policy details.The Policy was passed into law by the U.S. Congress in 2009.
Exempt publications include:
Exempt publications may still be reported in NIH progress reports via My NCBI, but listed at not applicable (N/A). Find more about reporting and citing exempt publications to the NIH.
The answer, in short, is funding. As of 2013, NIH has a strict policy of delaying the processing of non-competing renewal awards until all applicable articles are brought into compliance.
Resolving compliance issues can take weeks to resolve. Articles may not be removed from a progress report to avoid a compliance issue (see why). See Resolving Non-Compliant Publications for help.
Tips for hassle-free compliance
See all notices related to the Policy.