In 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memo requiring all federal agencies to develop or revise their respective agency policies to make journal articles and data arising from federally funded research publicly available immediately upon publication, updating previous requirements which allowed for an embargo (delay after publication) of up to twelve months.
OSTP requires that these new or revised federal funding agency policies go into effect no later than December 31, 2025. Implementation details and guidance will vary; see your funder’s website for more details.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has revised its Public Access Policy effective July 1, 2025. (Originally, this revised policy had an effective date of December 31, 2025, but in April NIH moved that date to July.) See below for details about how to comply with the NIH policy. Note: this page provides guidance for articles only; all data management and sharing requirements remain covered by the 2023 NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy.
We will update this page as we learn what additional guidance may be provided by NIH, and how publishers respond to the policy.
Read more below to learn about:
- Requirements for NIH-funded Authors
- Publication Costs and Policy Compliance
- How the Policy Applies in Different Publishing Scenarios
Requirements for NIH-funded Authors
If an article results from NIH funding in whole or in part, and that article is accepted for publication in a journal on or after July 1, 2025, the article is subject to the NIH Public Access Policy requirements listed below. (NIH-funded articles accepted for publication before July 1, 2025 remain subject to NIH’s 2008 Public Access Policy.)
- Authors must submit “an electronic version of the Author Accepted Manuscript to PubMed Central upon its acceptance for publication for public availability without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication.”
- The policy provides the following definitions:
- Author Accepted Manuscript: “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.”
- Official Date of Publication: “The date on which the Final Published Article is first made available in final, edited form, whether in print or electronic (i.e., online) format.”
- Final Published Article: “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.”
- Note: Under the NIH’s previous policy, some publishers deposited articles on behalf of authors. As the publishing landscape shifts during this time, authors should not assume that publisher deposits will continue, or that publisher information about policy compliance is up to date. Authors are responsible for complying with their funder requirements and should deposit their Author Accepted Manuscripts in PubMed Central directly unless they confirm that their publisher has already done so.
- Also note: The author of any article published open access with a Creative Commons license can deposit the Final Published Article in PubMed Central – the formatted PDF available on the publisher’s website – rather than the Author Accepted Manuscript.
- The policy provides the following definitions:
- Authors must include an “acknowledgment in the Author Accepted Manuscript and Final Published Article that satisfies the requirements in the NIH Grants Policy Statement (GPS) regarding communicating and acknowledging federal funding (GPS 4.2.1 and GPS 8.2.1), as well as analogous requirements for acknowledging federal funding as incorporated into the terms of Other Transaction agreements and applicable contracts.”
- When submitting an Author Accepted Manuscript to NIH, an author must agree to “a standard license that mirrors that of the Government Use License at 2 CFR 200.315, or its successor regulation, explicitly granting NIH the right to make the Author Accepted Manuscript publicly available through PubMed Central without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication.”
- This license aligns with terms of award for NIH grants, as also noted in the policy: “By accepting NIH funding, the recipient grants to NIH, as the funding agency, a royalty-free, nonexclusive, and irrevocable right to reproduce, publish, or otherwise use the work for federal purposes and to authorize others to do so, which includes making Author Accepted Manuscripts publicly available in PubMed Central upon the Official Date of Publication. A statement that conveys this point is incorporated into Notices of Award, the terms of Other Transaction agreements, and applicable contracts.”
Publication Costs and Policy Compliance
Per NIH, “Submission of Author Accepted Manuscripts to PubMed Central remains free for authors under the NIH Public Access Policy.” Paying an open access fee to the publisher is not required for compliance with federal public access policies.
Publication costs, including open access article processing charges (APCs), are allowable in grant budgets following agency guidelines (see NIH’s guidance on publication costs). The University of California has agreements with numerous publishers to help authors pay APCs. In many cases, UC’s participation supports or eliminates open access fees for UC corresponding authors. Search for journals covered by UC’s agreements in the Journal Open Access Lookup Tool, and use the Directory of Open Access Journals to identify trustworthy open access journals (including low- and no-cost).
The NIH guidance also states that if, “during the course of the publication process, an author is asked to pay a fee for submission of the Author Accepted Manuscript to PubMed Central, such costs are not allowable.” (see the NIH Policy, under “NIH Funding of Publication Costs”).
How the Policy Applies in Different Publishing Scenarios
The following guidance applies to journal article manuscripts at various stages of the publication cycle and is meant to address common questions that arise as the revised policy is rolled out.
Note:
- A hybrid journal is a subscription journal that offers authors a fee-based option to publish their article open access.
- A fully OA journal publishes all its content open access (OA).
Article Accepted Before July 1, 2025
Manuscripts accepted for publication before July 1, 2025 are subject to NIH’s 2008 Public Access Policy. Authors should deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript in PubMed Central. An embargo of up to twelve months after the date of publication is allowed.
Article Accepted After July 1, 2025 but Not Yet Published
Manuscripts accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025, regardless of submission date, must follow the requirements outlined above for public availability of the Author Accepted Manuscript.
Open Access Articles
The Academic Senate of the University of California strongly recommends that all UC authors choose the open access publishing option whenever possible. Authors can achieve this goal by publishing in a fully OA journal or choosing the OA option in a hybrid journal.
Fully OA and Hybrid journals
Fully OA journals publish all content open access. Many of these journals levy article processing charges (APCs) on authors. Hybrid journals contain a combination of open access and subscription-based articles. Hybrid journals charge APCs for any articles published open access.
If you encounter charges associated with publishing OA in either journal type, you have a few options:
- If the journal is covered by a University of California open access publishing agreement and there is an OA article processing charge (APC), either a) pay the APC portion not covered by UC if you budgeted for publication costs in your grant; or b) request full funding if available through the UC agreement when you do not have research funds for your article.
- Note that some UC libraries have campus-specific agreements. Check resources for your campus.
- If the journal is not covered by a UC agreement, pay the APC. If you have research funds available for publication costs, use those funds in accordance with NIH’s guidance on publication costs.
Deposit in PubMed Central: The author of any article published open access with a Creative Commons license can deposit the Final Published Article – the formatted PDF available on the publisher’s website – rather than the Author Accepted Manuscript in PubMed Central. If your publication does not have a CC license, deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript in PubMed Central, with no embargo after the date of publication.
Subscription-Based Articles
Authors can also publish in an entirely subscription-based journal or choose the subscription-based option in a hybrid journal.
Publishers do not levy open access article processing charges (APCs) on authors who publish in subscription-based journals or who choose the subscription option in a hybrid journal.
Deposit in PubMed Central: If you are publishing a subscription-based article, deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript in PubMed Central with no embargo after the date of publication. This compliance method is free.
Note: If your publisher insists that you must switch to open access because you are NIH funded and will be depositing a copy in PubMed Central immediately upon publication, you may encounter unexpected fees. (If this occurs, please consider sharing your experience with the Authors Alliance using their Federal Public Access Policy Implementation – Real World Experiences form.) See the guidance above in “Open Access articles” to determine whether UC can support or fully cover these fees.
Article Was Accepted after July 1, 2025, and is Published
If your article has been published, you can check to see if your publisher has already deposited it in PubMed Central. If not:
- For subscription articles published behind a paywall, deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript in PubMed Central, with no embargo after the date of publication.
- The author of any article published open access with a Creative Commons license can deposit the Final Published Article – the formatted PDF available on the publisher’s website – rather than the Author Accepted Manuscript.
Articles With Funding From More Than One Agency
Works published as a result of funding from more than one federal agency are subject to the public access policies of all applicable agencies. If your funding agencies have designated different repositories for manuscripts, make sure to deposit the manuscript in each repository. Follow your agency’s other requirements for tracking and reporting funded articles.
Articles Associated With a Canceled Grant
Articles arising from cancelled grants may still be subject to the requirements that the grant included when the funds were awarded. Authors should assume that the NIH Public Access Policy requirements still apply if a publication was created as a result of federal agency funds, unless the funder specifies otherwise.
Make Informed Decisions About Where You Publish
Know what to expect for your publishing options. Before submitting your manuscript to a journal, check to see whether the publisher’s policies are friendly to zero-embargo funder public access policies. For example,
- AAAS and SAGE Publishing provide explicit free “green open access” author rights for depositing the Author Accepted Manuscript in a repository after the manuscript is accepted.
- In contrast, authors who wish to publish on a subscription basis with Springer Nature or Elsevier may be told their article cannot proceed to publication unless they choose a workflow that requires payment (i.e., an APC) and results in the article being OA on the journal website, not just in PubMed Central.
- Be aware that fees directly targeting deposit of an Author Accepted Manuscript, like the ACS Article Development Charge, may not be an allowable cost according to NIH guidance on publication costs. That guidance states that “Costs for publishing services that are charged differentially because an Author Accepted Manuscript is subject to the NIH Public Access Policy or the work is the result of NIH funding are unallowable because charges must be levied impartially on all items published by the journal, whether or not under a federal award (GPS 7.9.1).”
Even if the publisher’s green OA policy calls for embargoing public release of your Author Accepted Manuscript, the government acquired a prior non-exclusive license to the article when the grant recipient first accepted the terms of award. This license provides the agency with the right to make the article publicly accessible without embargo. Read more about this in The NIH Public Access Policy: Q&A for Authors, from the Authors Alliance.
If you plan to submit your work to a fully OA journal or prefer to publish it OA in a hybrid journal, find out what publication fees the journal charges. Then, check the title in UC’s Journal Open Access Lookup Tool to find out if open access fee support is available. Authors are encouraged to budget for publication costs in proposals. The Open Access Fact Sheet for Researchers Applying for Grants from UC’s Office of Research Policy Analysis and Coordination provides more details.
