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Federal Agencies Public Access Policies

This guide is intended for use by the researchers at Rutgers University. It covers an overview and requirements of the policy, addressing copyright issues, submission methods, citing PMCID, and how to manage compliance.

New Implementation Deadline for the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy: July 1, 2025

Update on NIH Public Access Policy: What You Need to Know about the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy?

Overview

On April 30, 2025, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a significant update to its Public Access Policy, aimed at accelerating access to federally funded research. This change aligns with the broader federal initiative to ensure free, immediate, and equitable access to scientific knowledge.

Effective Date

The updated policy will take effect for final peer-reviewed manuscripts from NIH-funded research accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025. Until then, NIH's current (2008) Public Access Policy remains in effect.  

What’s New?

Under the 2008 NIH Public Access Policy, researchers were allowed to delay public access to their peer-reviewed manuscripts for up to 12 months after publication. The 2024 NIH Public Access Policy eliminates this embargo period, requiring that all NIH-funded research articles be made immediately available to the public via PubMed Central upon acceptance 

What Are the Major Requirements?

  • NIH requires immediate submission of final peer-reviewed journal articles (Author Accepted Manuscripts or AAM) to PubMed Central (PMC) upon acceptance for publication.
  • NIH requires authors to include an acknowledgment of NIH funding in the Author Accepted Manuscript and Final Published Article.
  • NIH requires authors to grant NIH the rights to the accepted manuscripts that are equivalent to those of the Federal Purpose License.

How to Comply?

  • Submit the final peer-reviewed manuscript from NIH-funded research to PMC via the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS) immediately upon acceptance for publication.
  • Submit the final published article resulting from NIH-funded research to PMC by the journals or publishers through their agreements with NIH.

Are There Any Costs?

  • There is no cost to comply with the policy itself.
  • Submitting manuscripts to PMC and making them publicly accessible is free.
  • However, some journals may charge publication fees. These costs are not required by NIH but may be incurred depending on the journal you choose.
  • Rutgers University Libraries have agreements with several journals/publishers to cover APCs for our researchers. Please explore this page for OA publishing opportunities for Rutgers researchers at https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/research-support/open-access-publishing-opportunities-rutgers-researchers.  

Why Is This Important?

This enhanced Policy aims to:

  • Promote transparency and trust in publicly funded research.
  • Enhance reproducibility and collaboration across the scientific community.
  • Ensure that taxpayer-funded research is accessible to all, including researchers, educators, clinicians, and the public.
  • Failure to comply with the Policy and acknowledge federal funding in the manuscript will affect grantees’ future funding decisions or delay the release of funding.

Resources for Compliance

How Can the Libraries Help You?

The Health Sciences libraries offer:

Note: The sessions will be recorded and posted at the NIH Public Access Policy research guide.

Contact Us

What is NIH Public Access Policy?

The 2008 NIH Public Access Policy (https://sharing.nih.gov/public-access-policy) The U.S. Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2008, PL-110-161. In Division G, Title II, Section 218 of the law it states: "The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided that the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law."

NIH Public Access Policy is a law. It's mandatory. It is a Term and Condition of Award for all grants and cooperative agreements active in Fiscal Year 2008 (October 1, 2007- September 30, 2008) or subsequent fiscal years, and for all contracts awarded after April 7, 2008. It ensures the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research.

NIH Public Access Policy FAQ (https://sharing.nih.gov/faqs#/public-access-policy)

What is the policy applicable to?

  • Peer-reviewed paper
  • Paper resulting from NIH funded research
  • Paper accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008. (July 1, 2025 for 2024 NIH Public Access Policy).

Final Peer-Reviewed Manuscript

  • Author’s accepted manuscript (AAM) of a peer-reviewed paper accepted for journal publication
  • Includes all modifications from the peer review process
  • Submitted by Authors/designee or  Publishers/Journals to PMC

Final Published Article

  • Journal’s authoritative copy of the paper
  • Includes all modifications from peer review and the publishing process: copyediting, stylistic edits, and formatting changes
  • Submitted by Publishers/Journals to PMC

PubMed Central vs PubMed

PubMed Central (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/): A digital repository created by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) for providing access to full text journal articles and authors' final versions of peer-reviewed manuscripts resulting from NIH-funded research. It is also a repository for journals and publishers that signed an agreement with the National Library of Medicine to place their content in the repository.

PubMed (http://pubmed.gov): PubMed provides free access to over 38 million references for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, which indexes about 5,200 worldwide biomedical journals, selected life sciences journals, and online books.