NIH Public Access Policy

In Method C, you will deposit the final peer-reviewed manuscript in PMC yourself via the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS). Some publishers allow authors to self-submit the final peer-reviewed manuscript to NIHMS for deposit in PMC. Authors who exercise this option must retain the right to do so.  When reviewing the publisher's copyright agreement, the author should ensure that the publisher will:

• Allow the author to self-submit the final peer-reviewed manuscript upon acceptance of publication.
• Allow the final peer-reviewed manuscript to be publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication.  If you are unsure of this publication date, contact your publisher. 

If the publisher does not allow this, you can decide to publish in a different journal to be in compliance.

Before self-submitting, authors will need to find out any stipulations of the publisher. These stipulations can usually be found in the publisher's copyright agreement form and include items such as: embargo period, which version to post, whether or not to include the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), and whether to link to the final published version on the journal website.

• If the journal and publisher are NOT on any of these lists (A, B or D), you will be following Method C.

Awardees are responsible for ensuring that manuscripts are submitted to the NIHMS upon acceptance for publication and that all NIHMS tasks are completed within three months of publication. The NIHMS will email the author and all PIs the citation with the PMCID once it is assigned; PMC will automatically make the paper publicly available after the designated delay period has expired. 

Submitting a final peer-reviewed manuscript to PMC via the NIHMS involves three tasks:

1. Deposit manuscript files and link to NIH funding
2. Authorize NIH to Process the Manuscript (authors receive an email seeking approval)
3. Approve the PMC-formatted manuscript for public display

Authors (or someone they delegate) can submit the final peer-reviewed manuscript (not the final published version) to the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS).  Submitting to NIHMS is the only way an author can submit manuscripts to be added into PMC, if the journal publisher doesn't deposit it for them.

NIHMS provides step-by-step instructions for depositing the manuscript from their list of tutorials. They also have an FAQ page.

*NIHMSIDs will become invalid three months after a paper is published.