Skip to content

NIH’s Public Access & Data Sharing Policies: What The Woods Hole Science Community Needs to Know

July 14, 2025

NIH Public Access Policy 

In April the NIH Director announced that the effective date for the new NIH Public Access Policy would be moved up to July 1, 2025 (the effective date was previously December 31, 2025). Here’s what you need to know and some resources to help you out!

What is the NIH Public Access Policy?

  • The NIH’s Public Access Policy is an Open Access mandate requiring research papers that include research funded by the NIH to be made available to the public, for free, through PubMed Central (PMC) within 12 months of publication
  • Failure to comply could jeopardize future funding
  • You paper must include a statement acknowledging federal funding in your submitted article
    • What can you do? Include an Acknowledgement Statement in your manuscript listing the grant number 

How do I make my paper publicly available?

As you consider where to publish your work, keep in mind that journals and/or publishers whose PMC submission practices were in compliance previously may NOT have updated their policies to be in compliance with the new rules at this time. Practices that have kept you in compliance in the past, may not be sufficient now. 

Some important things to keep in mind when making your papers publicly available:

  • Authors/PIs are required to submit the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) or Final Published Article for any peer-reviewed journal article into PubMed Central (PMC) immediately upon the “Official Date of Publication”
  • Authors/PIs must agree to a license similar to the Government Use License (2 CFR 200.315), explicitly granting the NIH the right to make the AAM publicly available in PMC, with no embargo, on the Official Date of Publication
    • What can you do? Check the PMC Journal List to see if your final published article is submitted to PMC by the journal or not AND ask your publisher if they submit to PMC or if that is your responsibility. 
  • There are 4 different methods for depositing your manuscript into PMC – which method you follow depends on your publisher or journal:
    1. Journal deposits final published article in PMC;
    2. Journal deposits final article but not the final published version;
    3. Author deposits the manuscript in NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS);
    4. Publisher deposits manuscript on behalf of author 

Does this apply to my grant?

  • The 2024 Public Access Policy is effective for manuscripts accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025 – including manuscripts using research data completed using grants awarded prior to the implementation date. 
  • Your article is exempt if:
    • It is not peer-reviewed
    • If it was accepted for publication before April 7, 2008
    • If it was not supported by NIH funds 
  • What can you do? Keep track of if your papers in your MyNCBI Profile – check and manage “MyBibliography” to track your NIH Public Access Policy compliance for your papers

Resources and Additional Information for the NIH Public Access Policy

NIH Data Sharing 

What is the NIH Scientific Data Sharing Policy?

The aim of the NIH Scientific Data Sharing Policy is to promote open access data sharing in order to accelerate biomedical research. Researchers are expected to plan and budget for Data Management and Sharing (DMS), submit a Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP) with your grant application, and to comply with your approved DMSP.

NIH 2025-2030 Strategic Plan for Data Science 

The NIH 2025-2030 Strategic Plan for Data Science expands upon the first Strategic Plan for Data Science that was originally released in 2018. The plan has 5 main goals in mind:

  1. Improve Capabilities to Sustain the NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing
  2. Development Programs to Enhance Human Derived Data for Research
  3. Provide new Opportunities in Software, Computational Methods, and AI
  4. Support a Federated Biomedical Research Data Infrastructure
  5. Strengthen a Broad Community in Data Science 

Resources and Additional Information for NIH Data Management & Sharing

 

How can the MBLWHOI Library help you?

Still not sure if the journal you’re submitting your paper to will help with Public Access compliance or which PMC submission process you need to go through? Questions about Open Access publishing? Ask us! Contact Sam Porter at sporter@mbl.edu or library@mbl.edu with questions. 

The MBLWHOI Library provides research data support and can help you with data management plans, using DMPTool, data publishing, data access, data citations, understanding FAIR & CARE principles, and data handling workflow and assessment. For more information on the data services we provide, please see our website.

Posted in Blog Post, Uncategorized and tagged , ,