This guide provides information on what the NIH public access policy is and how to stay compliant to ensure the continuation of your funding. 

The compliance process seems overwhelming so we have provided a lot of resources, FAQs, and links to help you. 

We recommend that you look at the resources contained in this guide first before reaching out to NIH or your librarian. 

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.
It is a condition of the award and thus predates any agreement with a publisher.

What This Means:

This policy requires scientists to submit or have submitted for them final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PMC (formerly PubMed Central) upon acceptance for publication. These papers must be accessible to the public on PMC no later than 12 months after publication.

NIHMS Submission Help Desk: nihms-help@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov 

My NCBI Help Desk: info@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Public Access Policy questions: PublicAccess@nih.gov

If you have questions related to your subject area, please contact your subject specific librarian

If you have questions regarding your application, please contact Office of Research & Sponsored Projects (ORSP)

If you have questions regarding open access and scholarly communications, please contact