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

For non-competing continuation grant awards with a start date of July 1, 2013 or beyond:

1) NIH will delay processing of an award if publications arising from it are not in compliance with the NIH public access policy.

2) Investigators will need to use My NCBI to enter papers onto progress reports (see My NCBI Help).  Papers can be associated electronically using the RPPR, or included in the PHS 2590 using the My NCBI generated PDF report.

Please see NOT-OD-12-160 and NOT-OD-13-042 for more details.

Helpful Links:

The diagram below depicts the overall process involved in the NIH Public Access Policy.  It illustrates what systems are involved and the interactions between those systems.  The steps a PI/author needs to take are illustrated, with those that are typically problematic highlighted in red.