To advance science and improve human health, NIH makes the peer-reviewed articles it funds publicly available on PubMed Central. The 2024 NIH Public Access Policy requires Author Accepted Manuscripts accepted for publication in a journal, on or after July 1, 2025, to be submitted to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication, for public availability without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication.

The 2024 NIH Public Access Policy requires:

• Submission of the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) to PubMed Central (PMC) upon acceptance for publication;
• Acknowledgement of NIH funding in AAM and Final Published Article;
• Upon submission to PMC, grant NIH the right to make the AAM publicly available in PMC on the Official Date of Publication.

NIH Awardees are responsible for compliance. Noncompliance may be considered by NIH in future funding decisions. If you have questions about compliance, please contact the Division of Sponsored programs at dsp@uiowa.edu.

Research publications describing project or programs funded by NIH must acknowledge that support. The publication must include the following three statements:

1. A specific acknowledgment of NIH grant support, such as:
   "Research reported in this [publication/press release] was supported by [name of the Institute(s), Center, or other NIH offices] of the National Institutes of Health under award number [specific NIH grant number(s) in this format: R01GM987654]." (If you have more than one grant, only cite the grant(s) that supported the research described in the article or presentation.)
2. An acknowledgement of the level of NIH funding that indicates:
   1. the percentage and dollar amounts of the total program or project costs financed with Federal money and
   2. the percentage and dollar amount of the total costs financed by nongovernmental sources.
3. A disclaimer that says:
   "The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health."

[From Communicating and Acknowledging Federal Funding]

NIH encourages authors to be transparent during the journal submission process and to include a statement in the submitted manuscript acknowledging NIH’s right to make the AAM publicly available. (See Notice NOT-OD-25-049.)

NIH provides the following sample language that may be included in the Submitted Manuscript and then, should it be accepted, the Author Accepted Manuscript:

“This manuscript is the result of funding in whole or in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is subject to the NIH Public Access Policy. Through acceptance of this federal funding, NIH has been given a right to make this manuscript publicly available in PubMed Central upon the Official Date of Publication, as defined by NIH.”

Despite this, not all journal publishing agreements allow for the immediate deposit of the AAM in PMC. Journals with an active agreement to deposit all articles can be found in the PMC Journal List. NIH recommends reviewing the specific journal record to confirm that the Release Delay is 0 months (Immediate Release) and the Agreement Status is Active. Authors should carefully review publishing agreements to ensure they do not conflict with NIH’s rights. If you have questions about your compliance obligations related to any publishing agreement,  please contact the Office of the General Counsel at general-counsel@uiowa.edu.

Compliance with the Policy may be achieved through submission to PubMed Central of the:

• Author Accepted Manuscript upon its acceptance for publication, OR

• Final Published Article from journals or publishers with formal agreements with NLM.

For public availability without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication.

[More info: Submitting to PubMed Central]

The Author-Accepted Manuscript (AAM) is 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.

Papers are required to be submitted via the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS) upon acceptance for publication. Publishers, authors or their designee deposit files and the NIHMS converts them to the PubMed Central native format.

Submission of AAM to PubMed Central (PMC) remains free for authors. Journal or publisher fees that arise during the course of the publication process for the sole purpose of submitting the AAM to PMC are not allowable costs. (See Notice NOT-OD-25-048.)

If you have questions or need assistance with submitting your AAM to PMC, please contact the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences at lib-hardin@uiowa.edu.

The Final Published Article is 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.

In this submission method, the publisher posts the paper directly to PubMed Central, upon the official date of publication.

Open access (OA) publishing is typically required to make the final published article publicly available in PubMed Central. Reasonable OA publication costs (APCs) are allowable as direct or indirect costs. (See Notice NOT-OD-25-048.) Corresponding authors affiliated with the University of Iowa can publish OA for free in:

• Journals covered by the university's OA Agreements; or
• Journals that don't charge fees (i.e. diamond OA).

If you have questions or need assistance with OA publishing, please contact the University Libraries' Scholarly Impact department at lib-impact@uiowa.edu.

Who submits?

Publisher Submits Manuscript: If your article is published in a journal that submits articles to PubMed Central, the publisher will deposit the files directly. However, the author (Reviewer) must still approve the submission and the final web version of the manuscript. The author will receive an email with links to the submission.

Author or PI Submits the final peer-reviewed Manuscript: Both PIs and non-PIs can submit manuscripts, but the author (Reviewer) must approve the submission. NIH has very good web tutorials for principal investigators, authors, and non-PI submitters. If you need assistance, please contact the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences at lib-hardin@uiowa.edu.

No matter which method of submission is used, manuscripts will not be posted to PMC without final approval from the author.