NIH Public Access Policy
The NIH Public Access Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results from NIH funded research. This requires the author of peer reviewed journal manuscripts (accepted since April, 2008) reporting research supported by NIH funds to submit them in the PubMed Central archive and be assigned a PMCID number in order to be compliant.
These are critical steps because as a center, CUPC is required to report which manuscripts were directly funded by our NICHD center grant in order to stay compliant. As a researcher likely to apply for future NIH funding, you are required to have PMCID numbers for all of your research which was directly funded by NIH. Failure to comply can result in suspension of funding.
How to Navigate the PMCID Process to be Compliant
Step One: Submitting Manuscript
One of the following applies to how your manuscript is deposited:
- Some journals, mostly biomedical, automatically submit the manuscript on your behalf. Check the NIH Public Access Policy Journal List to see if your journal will be using this method.
- Other journals will initiate the deposit but only if the author indicates that the article has received NIH funds on the copyright transfer form. See the NIH Deposit Publishers list of journal publishers (see Method D list) that will do this. Please be sure to indicate this, if appropriate, to avoid having to manually submit the manuscript.
- For all other journals, and in cases when NIH funding was not indicated on the copyright form, the Author or PI manually upload manuscripts into Pub Med Central/NIHMS and links them to NIH funding. Here is the NIH Manuscript Submission page for NIHMS.
You then receive the NIHMS ID, which is a temporary, 3 month, placeholder for a PMCID in process.
NOTE: It is important that the authors check in with their PI to see who is uploading their manuscript into PubMed Central, to make sure this process doesn’t get overlooked. Authors and PIs both have the ability to upload manuscripts, but Authors alone can approve manuscripts once uploaded.
Step Two: PDF Receipt
Author watches email and approves the PDF Receipt. This authorizes NIH to Process the manuscript. (via NIHMS account)
Step Three: Web Version
Author watches email again to approve the web version of the manuscript. (via NIHMS account)
Congratulations! You will now be assigned a PMCID number.
Resources and More Information
- Use your NCBI account , which you can link with your eRA Commons account, as your bibliography to track compliance.
- Additional detailed information on the submission process can be found in the NIH Public Access Policy website.
- If you run into problems with the NIH Manuscript Submission System, contact their Help Desk.
For additional help, please reach out to CUPC Program Manager Angela Branson.
The content on this page was originally developed by the University of Washington.
