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Scholarly Publishing and Communication

Overview

The new NIH Public Access Policy that went into effect on July 1, 2025 requires authors who receive NIH funding to make their Author Accepted Manuscripts freely available in PubMed Central (PMC) immediately at the time of publication. The Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) is the version that has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication but is not the final version that has been copyedited and formatted for journal publication.

Which articles are subject to the new policy?

The policy applies to any manuscript that: 

  • Is peer-reviewed; 
  • And, is accepted for publication in a journal on or after July 1, 2025; 
  • And, arises from: 
    • Funding by NIH in whole or in part through a grant or cooperative agreement, including training grants, a contract, an Other Transaction, or; 
    • NIH intramural research, or; 
    • The official work of an NIH employee.

This chart, created by Dana Haugh, Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, Yale, can also help explain:

Chart that explains which articles are subject to the new NIH public access policy. If your award was closed before July 1, 2025 or your manuscript accepted before July 1, 2025, comply with the 2008 Public Access Policy.

How to Comply

There are a few publishing options that will allow you to comply with the new NIH Public Access Policy.

Submit to a journal that has a zero-embargo policy

Some subscription and hybrid journals have policies that allow authors to deposit their AAM immediately to PMC at no cost. The journal's embargo policy for AAMs should be available on their website. You can also use the Open Policy Finder, but it's a good idea to check the journal's website for the most up to date information. If the journal does not have a zero embargo period, ask the journal before submitting if they can make an exception so that you can comply with the NIH public access policy.

Publish in an open access journal

When you publish in an open access journal, you retain the copyright of your manuscript which allows you to deposit it into PMC immediately. However, open access journals usually require authors to pay an article processing charge (APC). The library does have some open access publishing agreements that allow eligible authors to publish open access for free with select publishers.

Budget for APCs in your grant applications

According to NIH notice NOT-OD-25-048, the "NIH recognizes that some peer-reviewed publishing routes may result in publication costs, including, but not limited to, article processing charges (APCs). Publication costs are allowable when they comport with the existing NIH cost principles". To plan for this, come up with a list of potential journals and look up their APC amounts to provide an estimate.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: The NIH announced on July 8 that they would seek to establish new policies for allowable publication costs and later released a Request for Information (NOT-OD-25-138) that outlines five proposed options for limiting, or disallowing, these costs. The proposed effective date is January 1, 2026.

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For further information on issues on journal policies on embargoes, copyright, and publication fees that may affect how authors can comply with the new public access policy, read the Authors Alliance's NIH Public Access Policy: Q&A for Authors.

Depositing to PMC

There are several ways that articles are made available in PMC. The following guidance for determining how your article gets into PMC has been summarized from PMC's For Authors webpage.

Step 1: Check the Journal List

Some journals will submit the final, published article directly to PMC. See if your journal is included on the PMC Journal List and lists the following:

  •  The "Agreement to Deposit" field is "All articles", OR:
  •  The "Agreement to Deposit" field is "NIH funded articles" AND the "Release Delay (Embargo)" field is "0 months (immediate release)".
    • If the journal you're interested in has an embargo period, ask if they can make an arrangement before you submit your manuscript.

Step 2: Review the Selective Deposit Programs

Publishers may still deposit articles directly to PMC if an open access arrangement was made AND:

Check the Selective Deposit Collections page to see if your publisher is included. Be sure to confirm with the publisher that they will deposit your article.

Step 3: Deposit the AAM

If Steps 1 and 2 do not apply, you can deposit your AAM to the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system.

  • Deposit your article as soon as it is accepted. It may take several weeks for your article to be processed and made available in PMC.
  • Once your article has been deposited in NIHMS, you will receive a NIHMSID. Use the NIHMSID as evidence of compliance for up to 3 months or until your article gets a PMCID.

IMPORTANT: Publishers should not charge authors to submit to PMC for them. Authors can deposit AAMs into NIHMS for free if they have the copyright permission to do so.

Reporting to the NIH

My Bibliography is a tool available in My NCBI that allows you to add citations and link awards to those citations. Once you link your eRA Commons account to My NCBI, you’ll also be able to track the compliance status of your citations in My Bibliography. 

  1. Login or create a My NCBI account. 
    1. Use your eRA Commons account to login. 
    2. If you don’t have an eRA Commons account, use a different third-party login option, such as ORCID. Or click More sign up options and select University of Pittsburgh to login with your Pitt username and password. 
  2. If you have an existing My NCBI account, link your eRA commons account so that award information will appear in My Bibliography. 
  3. Add citations to My Bibliography. 
  4. Add awards to those citations and start/update compliance if necessary.

With citations and awards added to My Bibliography, you'll be able to create a Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) that shows compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy.