The National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) new NIH Public Access Policy will go into effect on July 1, 2025. While the current policy gives authors of manuscripts resulting from NIH-funded research up to 12 months to make their manuscripts available in PubMed Central (PMC), the new policy removes this embargo period. Manuscripts accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025, must be freely accessible in PMC immediately at the time of journal publication.
If your article was accepted for publication before July 1, comply with the current NIH Public Access Policy that allows the 12-month embargo period.
To ensure compliance with the new policy, authors should select a journal that gives them the right to deposit their author-accepted manuscript into PMC. They should also disclose their NIH funding to the publisher so that they understand that the article will need to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.
For further information, the Health Sciences Library System’s (HSLS) article "Earlier Implementation Date Announced for the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy" provides an overview of the new policy, and the Authors Alliance’s post "The NIH Public Access Policy: Q&A for Authors" addresses issues around author publishing agreements, journal embargo conflicts and more.
If you have any questions about these upcoming changes, selecting journals for publication or interpreting journal policies, contact HSLS Publishing Services.