Additional Guidance – NIH Public Access Policy for Manuscripts

Reminder and additional guidance regarding NIH’s revised public access policy for manuscripts. The original policy was updated on 4/30/25 to change the effective date to 7/1/25.

All NIH-funded manuscripts accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025 are subject to the Policy regardless of when they were submitted. Three major requirements:

  1. Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAM) in whole or in part from NIH funding must be submitted to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication and then made public without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication;
  2. Publications that result in whole or in part from NIH funding must acknowledge federal funding support; and
  3. Authors must agree to a standard Government Use License when submitting manuscripts to PubMed Central.

What does this mean in practice?

  1. Going forward, researchers are advised to notify publishers at the time of submission that the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) is subject to the Policy and therefore immediate inclusion on PMC. Because AAMs must include language acknowledging NIH funding, NIH recommends including the following statement in submitted manuscripts:
    • “This manuscript is the result of funding in whole or in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is subject to the NIH Public Access Policy. Through acceptance of this federal funding, NIH has been given a right to make this manuscript publicly available in PubMed Central upon the Official Date of Publication, as defined by NIH.”
  2. If the publishing journal imposes a fee in order for the Author to comply with the Policy, such fee may not be paid using federal grant funds. However, Open Access journals’ Article Publication Charges (APCs), assessed in the ordinary course of business, may continue being paid using federal grant funds, provided they are otherwise in compliance with 2 CFR 200.
  3. To satisfy the Government Use License requirement, the NIH instructs authors to include the following language in their PubMed Central submissions:
    • “I hereby grant to NIH a royalty-free, nonexclusive, and irrevocable right to reproduce, publish, or otherwise use this work for Federal purposes and to authorize others to do so. This grant of rights includes the right to make the final, peer-reviewed manuscript publicly available in PubMed Central upon the Official Date of Publication.”

Why is compliance important? The risk of noncompliance is jeopardizing your own, and BMC’s as a whole, eligibility to receive future federal funding.

What if I submitted a NON-open access article prior to July 1, 2025? (or entered into an agreement post 7/1 that includes an embargo): Reach out to the journal to discuss the new policy and potential paths forward that don’t include a fee.

Resources for additional information:

https://grants.nih.gov/faqs#/public-access-policy

https://www.authorsalliance.org/2025/06/06/the-nih-public-access-policy-qa-for-authors/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/about/submission-methods/

 

Please reach out to ResearchQuestions@bmc.org with any questions.

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