About the Policy
The NIH Public Access Policy requires that Principal Investigators submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication. The policy applies to all manuscripts accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008.
Compliance requires that these papers are accessible to the public on PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication. Evidence of compliance must be provided in all NIH applications and reports.
Compliance Overview
For more detail, please see NIH Policy: Steps for Compliance.
Submitting
- You must retain the right to deposit your article in PMC. Please see the Author's Rights page for more information and Hopkins-recommended addenda you can use.
- Many journals will submit the documents for you.
- Some journals will submit the documents for you if you pay them to do so.
- You, or an associate, will submit the documents to NIHMS.
Reporting
- Use the NIHMS number in reports for the first three months after the article has been published.
- After that you must use the article's PMCID in your NIH reports. It should appear at the end of the citation. PMCID:1234567
- The PMCID will be emailed to the PI. It can also be found in PubMed and PubMed Central.
- You can use the PMID to PMCID converter tool to search for PMCID numbers.
Managing Your Citations
- RefWorks: Exporting from PubMed or PubMed Central will include the PMCID. The NIH output style will include the PMCID in your citations.
- EndNote has an import filter and output style that includes PMCID number.
- In July 2010, the myNCBI bibliography tool replaced the eRA Commons for bibliography management. Instructions are available from the eRA (click Manage Your Professional Bibliography (My NCBI), then How-to Step by Step).
Quick Links
- Author's Rights
- Journals that Submit All NIH-Funded Final Published Articles to PubMed Central
- NIH Public Access Policy and Public Access FAQ
- NIHMS System and NIHMS FAQ & Tutorials
- PMID to PMCID Converter Tool
For Additional Assistance, Contact Your Librarian