For NIH awards that closed before July 1, 2025, any manuscripts resulting from and citing those awards should continue to follow the 2008 NIH Public Access Policy, which permits an embargo of up to 12 months.
Include a statement during manuscript submission:
“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.”
Check the journal's website or use the Jisc Open Policy Finder to review compliance routes and embargo policies.
Gold Open Access: Author pays a fee for the final version to be publicly accessible immediately.
Hybrid Open Access: Author pays a fee to make an article publicly available immediately in a subscription journal.
Green Open Access: Author deposits the manuscript in a repository. Often includes embargoes, which may not meet NIH requirements.
Publishing open access alone does not ensure compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy, though it often makes compliance easier. Researchers must confirm that their article is deposited in PubMed Central and assigned a PubMed Central ID (PMCID), which must be cited in annual progress reports and future grant applications.
Budget for article processing charges (APCs) in your grant if possible. Contact the Library to explore publisher agreements that may reduce or eliminate fees.
Reasonable article processing charges (APCs) are allowable costs if budgeted in the grant. Budget in advance and learn about the Library's current publisher agreements. Contact OPAM for further guidance.
Embargoes are no longer allowed. You have to comply with the NIH policy regardless of publisher restrictions. You should discuss options for compliance with your publisher. If you cannot find a way to be compliant, then consider another publisher. You can contact the Library for support in selecting a different journal.
Yes! There is a list of publishers where OHSU has agreements to cover the article processing charge (APC) so you don't pay.
Some publishers will require an open access fee in order for you to be compliant with the new policy and, if you cannot pay it, they may try to enforce their embargo period.
You could choose to self-submit your accepted manuscript to PubMed Central without paying the open access fee, but this would be in violation of the publisher embargo. It is not clear whether publishers can enforce embargoes since they are in conflict with the agreement you entered when you accepted NIH funds; however, that doesn't mean that they won't try to enforce their policies. From an article published by Authors Alliance:
Publisher agreements cannot supersede the federal agencies’ pre-existing rights. As we’ve explained before, we think it very unlikely that these conflicting agreements will limit federal agencies’ rights to share articles publicly, and therefore are unlikely to put authors (or their institutions) in a position of being in breach of their grant obligations. This is because the NIH and other federal agencies obtain a first-priority license covering the article as a required term of the grant agreement. In effect, this means that the federal government already has its rights secured before the publisher ever enters the picture, and therefore, nothing that a publisher asks an author to sign can give those rights away. Of course, authors must still take the mechanical step of ensuring that their articles are actually deposited with the agency.
If you cannot find a way to comply with this publisher and you don't want to risk self-deposit into PubMed Central in violation of the embargo, you may need to consider another publisher that would support compliance. If you need help finding another publishing venue, you can contact the Library.
A PubMed Central ID (PMCID) and a PubMed ID (PMID) are both numbers for articles, but they mean different things.
PMID – This is the number given to every article listed in PubMed, a database of article summaries (abstracts). A PMID helps you find and cite articles, but it doesn’t mean the full text is free to read.
PMCID – This is the number given to articles that are available in PubMed Central (PMC), a free online archive. A PMCID proves the article is publicly accessible and free to read.
For NIH grant proposals or progress reports, you must include the PMCID (not just the PMID) to show your article meets the requirements of the NIH Public Access Policy.
