NIH Public Access Policy

The National Institutes of Health has issued a Revised Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research (NOT-OD-08-033). The revised policy requires that, “all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication.” The specific requirements of the policy are as follows:



• As of April 7, 2008, all articles that arise, in whole or in part, from NIH funds must be submitted to PubMed Central (PMC) upon acceptance for publication. Additional information and guidance on how to submit articles is available at http://PublicAccess.NIH.gov/.
  
• Beginning May 25, 2008, NIH applications, proposals, and progress reports must include the PMC reference number when citing an article that falls under the policy and is authored or co-authored by the investigator, or arose from the investigator’s NIH award. This policy includes applications submitted to NIH for the May 25, 2008 due date and subsequent due dates. This requirement also applies to all career development awards and Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards.
  
• Failure to comply with this policy may jeopardize an investigator’s future NIH funding.
  
  

UCSB investigators are responsible for ensuring that any publication or copyright agreement with publishers comply with this requirement. The UC Research administration office has published guidance under Contract and Grant memo 08-05 http://www.ucop.edu/raohome/cgmemos/08-05.pdf . The guidance memo includes a letter that investigators may provide to publishers that puts them on notice of the requirement and the investigator’s intent to retain rights to deposit publications with PubMed Central. The letter is also attached to this announcement. Certain publishers have agreed to automatically submit articles to PubMed Central on behalf of authors. The list of publishers can be found at: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm.

The UCSB Library is offering assistance to investigators for compliance this requirement. Brad Eden, UCSB Scholarly Communication Officer, may be contacted at eden@library.ucsb.edu or at x4261 for assistance. The UCSB Library also encourages investigators to deposit their publications with the Digital Preservation Repository at the California Digital Library.

Please distribute this announcement to all faculty, post docs, and graduate students in your department. Questions related to this policy may be directed to your Sponsored Projects Team.