NIH Public Access Policy

NIH Public Access Policy – PubMed Central (PMC)

What is it?

A federal U.S. law which ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH-funded research like CHS. See: U. S. Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 (H.R. 2764).
Requires scientists to submit author-accepted manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to PubMed Central (PMC), a digital archive of full-text biomedical journal papers available online without a fee, upon acceptance.
NOTE: The NIH updated its Public Access Policy to require that Author Accepted Manuscripts accepted for publication in a journal on or after July 1, 2025 be submitted to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication, for public availability immediately (without embargo) upon the Official Date of Publication. For more information, please see:

Who is responsible?

Corresponding authors of peer-reviewed manuscripts that use data from directly-funded NIH studies like CHS and that were accepted after April 7, 2008.
CHS grantee/contractors: Papers submitted to PMC will be assigned a PMCID that must be cited by the CHS grantee/contractors in all future NIH applications, proposals or progress reports submitted to NIH. If a CHS grantee has failed to materially comply with the terms and conditions of award, NIH may suspend the grant, pending corrective action, or may terminate the grant for cause. In 2013, NIH implemented New Enhanced Compliance measures allowing the Institute to delay processing of non-competing continuation grant awards if publications arising from that award are not in compliance with the NIH public access policy.
CHS: Our compliance with the NIH PMC Public Access Policy is a legal requirement and a term and condition of our CHS funding awards.

How do I comply?

Confirm that the journal’s copyright policy will permit PMC submission. (Before you sign a publication agreement or similar copyright transfer agreement, make sure that the agreement allows your CHS paper to be submitted to NIH in accordance with this NIH Public Access Policy).
Determine the appropriate submission method for the journal using the chart below (see Submission Method table below):

Overview of Submission Methods

Version of Paper Submitted	Final Published Article	Author-Accepted Manuscript (AAM)
Submission Process	Publisher posts the paper directly to PMC, upon the official date of publication.	Papers are required to be submitted via the NIHMS upon acceptance for publication. Publishers, authors or their designee deposit files and the NIHMS converts them to the PMC native format.
Approve Submission	Publisher	Author, via NIHMS
Approve PMC web version	Publisher	Author, via NIHMS
Responsible Party	NIH Awardee	NIH Awardee
To cite papers, from acceptance for publication to 3 months post publication	PMCID or “PMC Journal- In Process”	PMCID or NIHMSID
To cite papers, 3 months post publication and beyond	PMCID	PMCID