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NIH Public Access Policy Details
The NIH Public Access Policy implements Division F Section 217 of PL 111-8 (Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009). The law states:
The Director of the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") shall require in the current ﬁscal year and thereafter that all investigators funded by the NIH submit
or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their ﬁnal, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon
acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the oﬃcial date of publication: Provided, that the NIH shall
implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

Applicability
Guide Notices
Testimony and Other Policy Related Communications

The Policy applies to any manuscript1 that:
Is peer-reviewed;
And, is accepted for publication in a journal2 on or after April 7, 20083;
And, arises from:Any direct funding4 from an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 or beyond, or;Any direct funding from an NIH contract signed on or after April 7, 2008, or;Any direct funding from the NIH Intramural Program, or;
An NIH employee.
1 Until further notice, manuscripts written in scripts other than Latin (e.g., Russian, Japanese) cannot be processed by the NIHMS (http://nihms.nih.gov/).

These manuscripts are not required to be posted on PubMed Central and do not require evidence of compliance on applications, proposals or reports.
The NIHMS continues to process manuscripts written in Latin (Roman) script that contain characters and fonts used in standard mathematical notation.
2 See the FAQ (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm#4003) for the full deﬁnition of a journal.
3 Authors may submit ﬁnal peer-reviewed manuscripts accepted before April 7, 2008 that arise from NIH funds, if they have the right or permission to doso.
4 "Directly" funded means costs that can be identiﬁed speciﬁcally with a particular sponsored project, or that can be directly assigned to such activities

relatively easily with a high degree of accuracy. When awardees list a publication in the progress report publication list of an RPPR or a renewal
application, they are claiming that the publication directly arises from that award and the awardee is responsible for the public access compliance of thelisted publications.
For Institutional Training, Career Development, and Related Awards (T15, T32/TL1, T34/TL4, T35, T90, R25/RL5, R90/RL9, K12/KM1/KL2, D43, D71, DP7,
U2R, U45): Trainee, scholar, and participant publications fall under the public access policy if the publication resulted from work conducted while theindividual was supported by the award (i.e., receiving a stipend or salary from the award). See NOT-OD-15-091 (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/noticeﬁles/NOT-OD-15-091.html) for more information.
For publications arising from shared resources, see NOT-OD-16-079 (https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOT-OD-16-079.html).

Guide Notices
Reporting Instructions for Publications Supported by Shared Resources in Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPR) and Renewal
Applications (https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOT-OD-16-079.html) (March 24, 2016)

Clarifying Publication Reporting Instructions for Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPR) and Renewal Applications(http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOT-OD-15-091.html) (May 25,2015)
Reporting Publications in the Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOT-OD-15-090.html)(April 10, 2015)
Changes to Public Access Policy Compliance Eﬀorts Apply to All Awards with Anticipated Start Dates on or after July 1, 2013(http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOT-OD-13-042.html) (February 14, 2013)
eRA Commons Users Can Now Generate a Publications Report for the PHS 2590 with My NCBI (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOTOD-13-017.html) (January 10, 2013)
Public Access Compliance Monitor: A New Resource for Institutions to Track Public Access Compliance (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/noticeﬁles/NOT-OD-13-020.html) (January 9, 2013)
Upcoming Changes to Public Access Policy Reporting Requirements and Related NIH Eﬀorts to Enhance Compliance(http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOT-OD-12-160.html) (November 16, 2012)
My NCBI Tool to Replace eRA Commons for Bibliography Management (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOT-OD-10-103.html) (June10, 2010)
Until further notice, only papers written in Latin script will be collected via the NIH Manuscript Submission System for the NIH Public Access Policy(http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOT-OD-10-009.html) (October 30, 2009)
Clariﬁcation on the Use of an NIHMSID to Indicate Compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOTOD-09-136.html) (August 12, 2009)
The Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 Makes the NIH Public Access Policy Permanent (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOT-OD-09071.html) (March 19, 2009)
Reminder Concerning Grantee Compliance with the Public Access Policy and Related NIH Monitoring Activities(http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOT-OD-08-119.html) (September 23, 2008)
NIH Guide Notice for Public Access (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-ﬁles/NOT-OD-08-033.html) (January 11, 2008)

Testimony and Other Policy Related Communications
Letter (Chairman_Pitts_PA111011.pdf) from Chairman Pitts on the NIH Public Access Policy (November 10, 2011), and Reply(Collins_reply_to_Pitts121611.pdf) from Francis Collins, M.D. (December 16, 2011).
Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives Committee(http://olpa.od.nih.gov/hearings/111/session2/Testimonies/PublicAccess.pdf) on Government Oversight and Reform- David J. Lipman, M.D. (July 29,2010)
Written Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property Committee on the Judiciary United States House ofRepresentatives (http://olpa.od.nih.gov/hearings/110/session2/Summaries/Public_Access.asp) - Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. (September 11, 2008)
Slides presented to the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property Committee on the Judiciary United States House ofRepresentatives (Zerhouni_091108_Public_Access_Hearing_508.pdf) (PowerPoint - 2.31 MB) - Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. (September 11, 2008)
Oﬃcal Transcript of the Hearing on Fair Copyright in Research Works Act from the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property
Committee on the Judiciary United States House of Representatives (http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/printers/110th/44326.PDF) (PDF - 50 MB)(September 11, 2008)
View comments on the public access policy (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/comments.htm) (March 2008 to May 2008)

Last Updated: Friday, March 25, 2016