NIH Public Access Law in a Nutshell
Conditions
Beginning Apr. 7, 2008, all peer-reviewed manuscripts based on NIH funding must be deposited to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication. Fulltext of the articles will become publicly available and searchable in PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication in a journal. NIH FAQs
Failure to comply may delay or prevent awarding of NIH funds, although noncompliance is not a factor in the evaluation of grant applications.

Submission Process
Deposit final peer reviewed manuscript, illustrations, etc. at NIH
- Via NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS) Any
author may submit the manuscript, but each Principal Investigator and Institution
is responsible for ensuring
that the terms and conditions of their award are met (NIH
Tutorials).
- Include the basic version*; or the preservation version* of the Stanford Copyright Addendum when signing publisher's copyright agreement.
- Respond to emails from NIH to verify accuracy of the submitted manuscript, illustrations, etc.
OR
- Deposit automatically via these journals.
- Respond to emails from NIH to verify accuracy of the submitted manuscript, illustrations, etc. and supply grant number(s).

Citation of NIH Funded Research
- Effective May 28, 2008, include the PubMed Central reference number (PMCID) for each article on NIH
applications, proposals or progress reports for papers published on or after April 7, 2008. The number
appears in PubMed on the far
right and in PubMed Central citations. Do not confuse the
PMCID for the fulltext with the PubMed indexing citation (PMID), see clarification or use PMID/PMCID converter. See also PMCID into EndNote.
Example
Zerhouni, EA. (2003) A New Vision for the National Institutes of Health. Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology (3), 159-160. PMCID: 400215
- If a PubMed Central reference number is not yet available, include the NIH Manuscript Submission system reference number (NIHMS ID) instead. If neither the PMCID or the NIHMS ID reference numbers are available, cite as "PMCID pending."
* The purpose of the Stanford Copyright Addendum is to assure compliance with the NIH Open Access Policy, including submission to PubMed Central. Stanford is dedicated to proper preservation of the documents of its faculty, and the preservation version of the Addendum contains a statement allowing Stanford to preserve the document and make a copy of the final manuscript available to the public in any media now known or hereafter created. Because the primary purpose of the Addendum is achievable without that statement, it is optional. Many, if not most, of the publishers do not object but if they do, then the basic version may be substituted, or researchers may negotiate their own NIH compliant agreement.
NIH Public Access
Track NIH compliance
- Using My Bibliography to manage compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy - by Bart Trawick, PhD; MLA 2010; February 2010
(Video - requires Flash v.8.0 or above) - My NCBI: Managing Compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy Using My Bibliography - NLM Technical Bulletin; Jan/Feb 2010
(Note: Despite the information regarding Awards View limited availability, it is now open to anyone)
Other
- NIH Public Access Grants Search Tool
- SHERPA/Romeo for specific journal's and publisher's policies on rights retention
- Johns Hopkins FAQs
Help
If you have further questions, do not hesitate to contact your department's liaison at Lane Medical Library.