NIH Public Access Policy

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research. It requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central (PMC) upon acceptance for publication.  To help advance science and improve human health, the Policy requires that these papers are accessible to the public on PMC no later than 12 months after publication.

This guide will provide and link to information about the various aspects of the Policy such as

• Determining if the policy applies to your paper;
• Process for submitting papers to PubMed Central (PMC);
• Correctly citing papers in applications and reports;
• Linking your My NCBI and eRA Commons accounts;
• Using My Bibliography to track your publications

For additional information please see
NIH Public Access Policy website

Overview of NIH Public Access Policy (video) from UCD Publishing Symposium, October 2017 

For information about the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy (Jan 25, 2023) see this News post.