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NIH Public Access: Manuscript Submission

The Law

The NIH Public Access Policy implements Division G, Title II, Section 218 of PL 110-161 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008) 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.


The Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 makes the NIH Public Access Policy permanent.

The Date
The policy applies to all peer reviewed NIH sponsored research accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008.

Does it apply to you?
Yes, if your peer-reviewed article meets any of the following criteria:

  • Directly funded by an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008   
        (October 1, 2007- September 30, 2008) or beyond;
  • Directly funded by a contract signed on or after April 7, 2008;
  • Directly funded by the NIH Intramural Program
  • If NIH pays your salary.

A reminder that NIH funding includes not only grants, but cooperative agreements, and contacts. If the author acknowledges NIH support in the article it should more than likely comply with the policy.

Charts from Becker Medical Library: "When do NIH funded authors need to comply?"
and NIH Compliance Flowchart.


Who is Responsible?
The Principal Investigator or Grantee is responsible, whether or not he or she is an author on a particular manuscript, to make certain personnel, even subcontractors, adhere to the NIH Public Access Policy.


The Submission Process in detail
How do you comply?  What do you submit?  How do you submit? When do you submit?

Copyright  Issues

The author will maintain the right to comply with the NIH manuscript submission requirement by using the Penn State Copyright Addendum.


The CIC Addendum goes further than the PSU addendum and ensures that authors retain rights that facilitate archiving, institutional use and sharing with colleagues.

Non Compliance
NIH may take proactive action to protect the Federal government's interests, including placing special conditions on awards or precluding the grantee from obtaining future awards for a specified period, or may take action designed to prevent future non-compliance, such as closer monitoring.  http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm#c10

Progress Reports
Anyone submitting an application, proposal or progress report to the NIH must include the PMC or NIH Manuscript Submission reference number when citing applicable articles that arise from their NIH funded research. Instructions on citing papers has been consolidated into a web page, at http://publicaccess.nih.gov/citation_methods.htm.

Relevant Topics

FAQs

How others are preparing

Misc. 

Endnote Implications for Manuscript Submission ( PMCID & NIHMID) numbers
NIH Public Access Policy Powerpoint Slides

 

Important Link

How do you comply?

 

  1. Address Copyright issues. Make certain that the publishing agreement allows for deposition of  manuscripts into PubMed Central on or after April 7, 2008. Investigators may check Sherpa Romeo for journal policies.   The author must maintain the right to comply with the NIH requirement.  This can be achieved by submitting this PSU approved  Addendum.  The Addendum uses language provided by the NIH. Part of the language includes:

    "Journal acknowledges that Author retains the right to provide a copy of the final manuscript to the NIH upon acceptance for Journal publication, for public archiving in PubMed Central as soon as possible but no later than 12 months after publication by Journal."
     
  2. Submit the article to PubMed Central by one of the following methods:
     
    1. Publish in a journal that automatically submits the final published article to PubMed Central without author involvement.List of participating journals.
       
    2. Make arrangements to have a publisher deposit a specific final published article in PubMed Central. This may be a fee-based open access option
       
    3. The Principal Investigator or Author (or their designate) submits a copy of the final peer-reviewed manuscript to the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS). The author personally verifies by email both the content and the format.
    4. Author completes submission of final peer-reviewed manuscript deposited by publisher in the NIHMS. In a variation of Method 3,  some publishers deposit the manuscript files in the NIHMS, provide contact information for a corresponding author, and designate the number of months after publication when the paper may be made publicly available in PMC.

    NIH tutorials are available for navigating the NIHMS submission process.

    University of Rochester's  list of publisher policies on submission of manuscripts to PubMed Central
          

  3. Cite. Effective May 25, 2008, anyone submitting an application, proposal or progress report to the NIH must include the PMC reference number when citing articles arising from their NIH funded research. The PMID to PMC ID converter is used to translate one type of ID to the other.


What do you submit?

Submit the journal title, the NIH grant numbers and grantee, the final peer-reviewed manuscript including the text, figures, tables, charts, graphics and supplementary data as indicated in the NIHMS submission system. NIH will convert the files into standard PubMed format.

How do you Submit?

NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS). The principal investigator must review and verify the content  several times during the submission process.

NIH tutorials are available for navigating the NIHMS submission process.

When do you Submit?

The author's final manuscript including all corrections / edits after peer review should be submitted to PMC at the same time that it is sent to the publisher for final formatting and copy editing. The manuscript must be made publically accessible within 12 months of publication.

View a PSU Presentation on this topic