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NIH Public Access Policy: NIH Public Access Policy

Information and resources on the NIH Public Access Policy, including eligibility, processes and compliance.

NIH Public Access Policy Update

Starting on July 1, 2013, for non-competing continuation grant awards, NIH will delay processing if publications arising from it are not in compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy. 

Articles resulting from NIH funding that have been published since April 2008 must be in PubMed Central (PMC) to be compliant.

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Check your Compliance

  1. Sign in to your My NCBI account
    a. If you do not have a My NCBI account, you can register for an account, or sign in using your eRA Commons login information via the NIH Login button
  2. Link your My NCBI login to your eRA Commons account (if eRA Commons is not your primary login)
    a. Listed as "NIH & eRA Commons" in the list of partner accounts
  3. Add citations to My Bibliography via PubMed
    a. Search for your publications on PubMed
    b. Check each publication
    c. Click "Send to:" and choose "My Bibliography"
    d. Save
  4. In the "My Bibliography" section of the My NCBI Home page, click on the link that says some of the citations in "My Bibliography" are not compliant with NIHPA (assuming you have non-compliant citations)
  5. Sort your publications list by Public Access Compliance using the Display Settings

Submit to PMC

If you find that you have non-compliant citations, you will need to submit them to PMC.  There are four different submission methods.  The method you use will depend on the journal/publisher associated with each citation.

NIH Help and Training

The NIH Public Access website offers overviews of the policy and the recent changes, along with help documents.