The NIH Public Access Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research. All peer reviewed articles arising from NIH funds are required to be submitted to PubMed Central. Submitting a manuscript usually takes less than 10 minutes.

The Policy applies to you if your peer-reviewed article is based on work in one or more of the following categories:

  • Directly funded by an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 (October 1, 2007- September 30, 2008) or beyond
  • Directly funded by a contract signed on or after April 7, 2008
  • Directly funded by the NIH Intramural Program
  • If NIH pays your salary

Authors may submit an article to the journal of their choice for publication.

  1. Many journals will submit articles to PubMed Central on behalf of the author. If you choose to publish your article in one of these journals, you need to do nothing further to comply with the submission requirement of the Policy. See http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm for a list of these journals.
  2. For any journal other than one of those in this list, the author must:
    • Inform the journal that the article is subject to the Public Access Policy when submitting it for publication.
    • Make sure that any copyright transfer or other publication agreement allows the article to be submitted to NIH in accordance with the Policy.
    • As an example, the kind of language that an author or institution might add to a copyright agreement includes
      the following:
      "Journal acknowledges that Author retains the right to provide a copy of the final manuscript to the NIH upon acceptance for Journal publication, for public archiving in PubMed Central as soon as possible but no later than 12 months after publication by Journal."
    • Submit the article to NIH, upon acceptance for publication.

See PubMed Central and NIH Public Access Update, June 2009, a presentation from the National Library of Medicine.

Important Dates

  • Effective August 21, 2009: To encourage timely paper submission and completion of the submission process, an NIHMSID may be used to indicate compliance with the Public Access Policy for up to three months after a paper is published. After that period, a PMCID must be provided in order to indicate compliance. For details on determining publication date and related information, see Clarification on the Use of an NIHMSID to Indicate Compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy.
  • As of May 25, 2008, NIH applications, proposals, and progress reports must include the PubMed Central reference number (PMCID) when citing an article that falls under the policy and is authored or co-authored by the investigator, or arose from the investigator’s NIH award. This policy includes applications submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 due date and subsequent due dates.

    An example citation:
    Yancy Jr WS, Macpherson DS, Hanusa BH, Switzer GE, Arnold RM, Buranosky RA, Kapoor WN. (2001). Patient Satisfaction in Resident and Attending Ambulatory Care Clinics. Journal of General Internal Medicine.16(11), 755–762. PMCID: PMC1495289

    Include PMCID in Citations describes how to cite a paper in accordance with the NIH Public Access Policy.

  • As of April 7, 2008, all articles arising from NIH funds must be submitted to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication.