The NIH Public Access Policy implements Division F Section 217 of PL 111-8 (Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009).  The law states:

The Director of the National Institutes of Health (“NIH”) shall require in the current fiscal year and thereafter that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, that the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

The Policy applies to any manuscript¹ that:

• Is peer-reviewed;
• And, is accepted for publication in a journal² on or after April 7, 2008³;
• And, arises from:
  • Any direct funding⁴ from an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 or beyond, or;
  • Any direct funding from an NIH contract signed on or after April 7, 2008, or;
  • Any direct funding from the NIH Intramural Program, or;
  • An NIH employee.

1 Until further notice, manuscripts written in scripts other than Latin (e.g., Russian, Japanese) cannot be processed by the NIHMS.  These manuscripts are not required to be posted on PubMed Central and do not require evidence of compliance on applications, proposals or reports.  The NIHMS continues to process manuscripts written in Latin (Roman) script that contain characters and fonts used in standard mathematical notation.

2 See the FAQ for the full definition of a journal.

3 Authors may submit final peer-reviewed manuscripts accepted before April 7, 2008 that arise from NIH funds, if they have the right or permission to do so.

4 “Directly” funded means costs that can be identified specifically with a particular sponsored project, or that can be directly assigned to such activities relatively easily with a high degree of accuracy. When awardees list a publication in the progress report publication list of an RPPR or a renewal application, they are claiming that the publication directly arises from that award and the awardee is responsible for the public access compliance of the listed publications.

For Institutional Training, Career Development, and Related Awards (T15, T32/TL1, T34/TL4, T35, T90, R25/RL5, R90/RL9, K12/KM1/KL2, D43, D71, DP7, U2R, U45): Trainee, scholar, and participant publications fall under the public access policy if the publication resulted from work conducted while the individual was supported by the award (i.e., receiving a stipend or salary from the award).  See NOT-OD-15-091 for more information.

For publications arising from shared resources, see NOT-OD-16-079.

Source: NIH Public Access Policy

Manuscript Submission

 Step-by-step instructions are provided in the video linked here. 

1. Visit https://www.nihms.nih.gov/login/
2. Select the eRA Commons option (You can select the Login.gov option once you arrive at the eRA Commons webpage)
3. Click the Submit New Manuscript button
4. Complete each section (title & journal, awards, and files) > Click the Next button to proceed
5. Designate a *Reviewer and an embargo period, if applicable. If “Self” is not selected, the embargo period is set by the designated Reviewer when they access the system for approvals.
• If you select “Self”, click the Next button
• If you are submitting on an author’s behalf, click the Send to Reviewer button

*The Reviewer must be an author on the paper or a PI on the grant associated with the paper. Only one (1) Reviewer can be assigned to a submission record. The designated Reviewer is responsible for providing approvals during the conversion process, signing off on the Submission Statement, and ensuring the documents are accurate and complete. If the Reviewer does not complete the required steps, the submission process cannot be completed. 

Manuscript Approvals

The designated Reviewer must provide initial and final approval of manuscript documents to complete the submission process. The Reviewer will receive email notifications from the NIHMS system with links and instructions for approval. The Reviewer may also receive notifications requesting corrections to the submission record.

Initial Approval 

 Step-by-step instructions are provided in the handouts linked on this page 

• NIHMS Tutorial: Initial Approval (NIH)
• NIHMS Tutorial: Reviewer’s Final Approval (NIH)
• NIHMS FAQs (NIH)

1. The designated Reviewer receives an email notification a few days after the initial submission
2. Click on the Access link provided in the email > You will be directed to the NIHMS system for login
3. Select the eRA Commons login option
4. After login, the system should take you directly to the manuscript awaiting review
• If the system does not take you directly to the manuscript, you can enter a ticket number in its respective field
5. Review each section > Click the Confirm button to proceed
6. Read and review the submission statement > Click the Agree button

Final Approval 

1. The designated Reviewer receives an email notification 2-3 weeks after the initial approval
2. Click on the Access link provided in the email > You will be directed to the NIHMS system for login
3. Select the eRA Commons login option (You can select the Login.gov option once you arrive at the eRA Commons webpage)
4. After login, the system should take you directly to the manuscript awaiting review
• If the system does not take you directly to the manuscript, you can enter a ticket number in its respective field
5. Review the PMC Web and PMC PDF documents to confirm that they are complete and contain no errors
• If you find an error, use the red location markers or +Add error button to report it
• If you previously requested corrections, you can review the corrections using the “View requested corrections”
6. If no errors are found, Click the Approve button

Submission Progress

Reviewers can check back anytime to view the status of a manuscript. Log into the NIHMS system and select In Process from the navigation menu on the left-hand side of the webpage. Select a manuscript to view its submission progress graphic:

Submission Statuses

The NIHMS Glossary provides a complete list of statuses and their meanings here. 

More information can be found at:

NIH Public Access and PMC

NIH Public Access Compliance Toolkit