NIH Public Access Policy

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:

1. Peer-reviewed
2. Accepted for publication in a journal on or after April 7, 2008
   • see NIH's definition of what qualifies as a journal
3. Arose in any part from an NIH grant, cooperative agreement, Intramural Program or contract active since the policy date, or from an NIH employee

See additional applicability guidelines and Policy details.The Policy was passed into law by the U.S. Congress in 2009.

Exempt publications include:

• Review articles, unless the article underwent peer-review
• Books; however a book chapter published in a series indexed in PubMed does fall under the Policy if it was peer-reviewed
• Manuscripts in non-Latin scripts (e.g. Russian, Japanese), since they cannot be processed by the NIH
• Articles accepted for publication before April 7, 2008

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.

1. Articles must be made publicly available in PubMed Central (PMC) no more than 12 months after the publication date.
2. There are four methods for getting papers into PMC, depending on the publication.
3. NIH expects articles to be made compliant with the policy by  three months after the official publication date. Compliance means the paper has a PMCID (unique identifier in PMC).
   • The PMCID is a different number from the PMID (PubMed identifier). See explanation.
   • A PMCID can be assigned before the paper is released to the public, thus a publication can be compliant even before it's publicly accessible.
   • After the three-month window, articles without a PMCID will have a non-compliant status, even if the manuscript is being processed in NIHMS (see explanation). Method A journals without a PMCID will show "in process".
4. Principal Investigators are required to use My NCBI (and My Bibliography specifically) to report their publications in NIH progress reports. Publications should not be left off the report for compliance reasons. See My Bibliography & Progress Reports for additional details.
5. Even if an investigator is not an author on a paper, NIH holds the PI responsible for papers resulting from their award.

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

1. Make sure all researchers and trainees on your grant know about the policy.
2. Let the publisher know that your article falls under the policy during article submission and/or acceptance.
3. Become familiar with Methods A-D
4. Pay attention to all emails from NIHMS, and follow up when any action is required.

See all notices related to the Policy.