Welch Medical Library Guides: NIH Public Access Policy: Overview

What is the NIH Public Access Policy?

The NIH Public Access Policy is an open access mandate established by the National Institutes of Health in 2008. The policy requires scientists to make the results of their NIH-funded research publicly available in NLM’s digital archive, PubMed Central (PMC) within 12 months of publication. When publishing these results in a peer-reviewed journal, scientists must deposit the final manuscript of their articles in PMC.

For an overview of the policy, visit the NIH's Public Access Policy website.

What Compliance Requires

Submitting Your Article

You must retain the right to deposit your article in PubMed Central (PMC)
There are four methods of submission to PMC
For two of the submission methods (A and B), the journal/publisher will submit your article for you
For the other submission methods (C and D), you are required to submit your article to the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS)
See Submission to PMC for more information

Reporting, Citing, and Managing Your Article

You are required to provide the PubMed Central ID (PMCID) when citing your article
If you have not been issued a PMCID, use the NIHMS number until you received the PMCID
See After Submission to PMC for more information

Related Public Access Policies & Plans

A New NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS)

This video reviews upcoming improvements to the NIHMS system. These changes will make the system easier to use. Note that this is not a step-by-step tutorial, and it is possible that some of the screenshot text may change before the final release of the updated site early in 2020.

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