Managing NIH Public Access Compliance

Peer-reviewed journal articles arising from NIH-funded research and accepted for publication on or after 
April 7, 2008 must be deposited in PubMed Central (PMC).   

• Submission to PMC must be completed within 3 months of acceptance for publication and the article made publicly available no later than 12 months after the publication date.

• All communications with NIH, e.g. applications, proposals or progress reports, must include the PMC or NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) reference number when citing applicable articles that arise from their NIH funded research.
   
• NIH authors must use My NCBI Bibliography to enter the references in their eRA Commons professional bibliography.
   
• NIH researcher, Primary Investigator and the Institution are responsible for compliance.

Effective July 1, 2013 NIH will delay processing of non-competing continuation grant awards if publications arising from them are not in compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy.​

This guide offers detailed information on each step.

• Determine applicability
   
• Address copyright
   
• Deposit paper in PMC 
   
• Show evidence of compliance
   
• Use My Bibliography for reporting in eRA Commons

Use the tabs above to learn how to become fully compliant with the NIH Mandate.

PubMed Central was created in 2000 as a digital, open access repository for biomendical and life sciences journal literature. In 2008 Congress mandated that all peer-reviewed journal articles that arise from NIH-funded research must be submitted.

PubMed links to the full text articles in PubMed Central.