NIH Public Access Policy Overview
Effective July 1, 2025 NIH requires immediate public access to either the author's accepted manuscript or the final published article upon publication (previous policy to July 2025 permitted embargoes up to 12 months from the date of publication). Articles accepted on or after July 1, 2025, are subject to updated guidance. Failure to comply with this mandate can jeopardize continued and future funding.
We strongly encourage NIH-Funded researchers to plan now for how they will meet these requirements. Options include:
- Publish in journals whose publishers permit zero-embargo sharing;
- Publish in journals with whose publishers KU has institutional agreements that eliminate or reduce article processing charge (APC) costs;
- Identify sources of funding to pay APCs during and beyond the grant period.
- APCs are allowable expenses per current NIH guidance, though NIH is presently considering disallowing or capping these allowable expenses. For data-informed analysis of the potential impact of capping APCs, see "NIH explores capping APCs: Let's look at the evidence" by researchers based in the ScholCommLab at Simon Fraser University.
NIH Scientific Data Sharing
NIH's Data Management and Sharing policy went into effect on January 25, 2023. This policy promotes data sharing in order to accelerate biomedical research. Researchers and institutions are expected to:
- Plan and budget for data management and sharing
- Submit a Data Management and Sharing Plan with each funding application
- Comply with approved Data Management and Sharing Plans
Further information to assist KU researchers with understanding the requirements is available at KU Libraries' NIH Data Management & Sharing Policy guide. NIH's comprehensive guidance on the policy is available at sharing.nih.gov.
NIH indicates that it anticipates no changes to its Data Management and Sharing policy as a result of the 2022 OSTP memo on public access to the results of federally-funded research.
Support at KU Libraries
For assistance with scholarly publication issues, contact Josh Bolick, Head of the Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright, at jbolick@ku.edu or see the KU Libraries Scholarly Communication Services page.
For assistance with research data management issues, contact Jamene Brooks-Kieffer, Data Services Librarian, at jamenebk@ku.edu or see the KU Libraries Research Data Management page.
Compliance Resources
Versions:
- Per NIH, the Final Published Article is the "journal's authoritative copy, including journal or publisher copyediting and stylistic edits, and formatting changes, even prior to the compilation of a volume or issue or the assignment of associated metadata."
- Author's Accepted Manuscript version—also known as the author's final draft, author’s accepted manuscript or post-print—is the "author’s final version that has been accepted for journal publication and includes all revisions resulting from the peer review process, including all associated tables, graphics, and supplemental material."
Compliance and Submission Resources:
