Important New NIH Public Access Requirements

New NIH rules have been adopted to ensure that the public has access to published results of NIH funded research: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-033.html. These rules require all peer-reviewed journal articles resulting from NIH funds to be deposited into the open-access digital archive, PubMed Central (PMC) within twelve months of publication.  The NIH has released comprehensive guidance on these new rules at http://publicaccess.nih.gov/ including an extensive FAQ http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm.

Key Elements of the New Rules:  
The Policy applies to any peer-reviewed article based on work in one or more of the following categories: 

• Directly funded by an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in federal fiscal year 2008 (October 1, 2007- September 30, 2008) or beyond; 
• Directly funded by a contract signed on or after April 7, 2008; 
• Directly funded by the NIH Intramural Program; 
• If NIH pays the investigator’s salary. 
• For more details see FAQ B.1.  http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm#b7 
• The policy imposes new responsibilities on NIH Principal Investigators and their home institutions. See FAQ B.7. http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm#b7 

“Principal Investigators and their Institutions are responsible for ensuring all terms and conditions of awards are met. This includes the submission of articles that arise directly from their awards, even if they are not an author or co-author of the publication. Principal Investigators and their Institutions should ensure that the authors are aware of and comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.”

For additional information vist the Library webpage