NIH Public Access Policy Overview
The content in this guide is under active review as funding agencies update their Public Access Plans per guidance issued in 2022. The new NIH Public Access Plan is effective as of July 1, 2025, and all other U.S. federal funding agency updated public access policies are required to be in place by January 1, 2026.
The National Institutes of Health has the longest-standing Public Access Policy for a U.S. federal research-funding agency (policy established 2008), and served as a model for many other policies when the OSTP directed other federal funding agencies to develop public access plans in early 2013. The NIH is a major source of funding for KU Research.
In short, the NIH Public Access Policy is an open access mandate requiring that research papers describing research funded by the National Institutes of Health must be available to the public for free through PubMed Central. Previous policy (to July 2025) permitted embargoes up to 12 months from the date of publication; new policy effective as of July 1, 2025 requires immediate public access to either the author's accepted manuscript or the final published article upon 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 submit articles to journals published by publishers that permit zero-embargo sharing, those with which we have existing OA agreements that meet your needs, or identify sources of funding to pay article processing charges during and beyond the grant period. APCs are allowable expenses per current funder guidance, though NIH is presently considering 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.
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:
