A 2024 National Institutes of Health  Public Access Policy now requires requires authors to submit any manuscript that is in whole or part the result of funding by NIH, and that is accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025, to PubMed Central without embargo.

The policy was announced in December 2024 and originally scheduled to go into effect in December 2025, and came into effect July 1.

Since 2008, NIH has ensured public access to published results of NIH-funded research by requiring researchers to submit their manuscripts to PubMed Central. The 2008 policy allowed up to a 12-month embargo period before submission to PubMed; now, articles must be publicly available without embargo.

How to comply

For all manuscripts published on or after July 1, authors must ensure compliance with NIH Public Access Policy. See the guide to the National Institute of Health Public Access Policy for more information.

There is some uncertainty about how authors comply — especially if they have signed agreements with publishers under the prior 12-month embargo allowance — and this guide will be updated if new information emerges.

Non-compliance will interrupt disbursements of NIH grant funds. 

Open access publishing options 

The library has open access publishing agreements with a number of publishers, including RSC, Wiley, and Springer Nature, which defray or eliminate the costs of complying with the public access policy. (See the guide to Scholarly Publishing for the full list). However, some of these agreements are more comprehensive than others.

For example, Chemistry Librarian Yulia Sevryugina notes that the American Chemical Society, the major publisher for chemistry researchers, does not provide an OA option unless authors pay associated fees. And while the library’s subscription to ACS includes discounts for these charges, they don’t come close to covering the full cost.

In the near term, some authors with manuscripts in the submission process will have to absorb these OA publishing costs for articles accepted after July 1. In the longer term, both authors and publishers may need to make adjustments. The library offers some suggestions for authors:

• Retain your rights by using an author’s addenda in your publishing agreements so that you can use and share your work.
• Find publishers that offer cost-effective OA options.
• Advocate for change by contacting publishers about their publication charges, and suggest they make more reasonable OA publishing agreements with the library.

The library will hold an information session on Zoom at noon June 27 to address compliance with the new policy.

The Author’s Alliance has published a Q&A for authors that digs into some of the thornier issues about who must pay, how publishers are responding, and what happens when federal requirements are in conflict with a publisher’s policies.