Federal Agencies Public Access Policies: Home

This guide is intended for use by the researchers at Rutgers University on compliance with federal funding agencies public access policies, focusing on NIH Public Access Policy (PAP). The content of this guide is outlined below:

• Links to Federal funding agencies' public access policies
• Understanding NIH PAP
• How to comply with NIH PAP

-  Address Copyright Issues

-  Submission Methods

- Citing PMCID

• Managing Compliance
• Contact Information
   

NIH Public Access Policy requires:

• Effective April 8, 2008, all investigators funded by the NIH must submit or have submitted for them to the NLM’s PubMed Central (PMC, NIH's free full text repository of biomedical and life sciences journal literature) an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication. The final published paper must be made publicly available in PMC no later than 12 months after the official date of publication in a manner consistent with copyright law. 

• As of May 25, 2008, NIH applications, proposals and progress reports must include the PubMed Central reference number (PMCID) when citing an article that falls under the policy and is authored or co-authored by the investigator, or arose from the investigator's NIH award. This policy includes applications, proposals and progress reports submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 due date and subsequent due dates.

• Effective July 23, 2013, PIs and PD's must use My NCBI's "My Bibliography" tool to manage their bibliographies.

Failure to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy could result in discontinuation of funding or no future funding.

Rutgers University Libraries provide support for NIH Public Access Policy compliance and assistance to authors who have questions about the policy or need assistance in finding publisher policies, submission methods, PMCID numbers, or other information. Email to: nih_publicaccess@libraries.rutgers.edu for additional information, questions, and support.