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University of Wisconsin–Madison

Update from UW Libraries on NIH and public access to publications

PostedJuly 7, 2025

The NIH accelerated the implementation date of the agency’s revised public access to publications policy from Dec. 31, 2025, to July 1, 2025.

NIH awardees must continue to ensure that any peer-reviewed publications derived from research sponsored by their awards are submitted to PubMed Central (PMC) and have PMCIDs.

The new policy requires that manuscripts accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025 should be added to the PMC and be fully accessible on the articles’ official publication dates. The previous option for allowing a 12-month embargo on the article’s access to the public is no longer permissible.

Practices to avoid publication noncompliance under the updated policy include:

Knowing if the journal or publisher will submit to PMC on behalf of the authors (check the journal’s Author Information page)

 

  • Keeping a copy of the accepted manuscript on hand if submission is necessary
  • Submitting to the NIHMS on acceptance or using a submission service such as BuckySubmit.

 

At this time, the UW Libraries recommend that authors work with their publishers to ensure their agreements are consistent with the funder expectation that manuscripts are immediately available in a repository upon publication. We also recommend that researchers refer to the NIH supplemental guidance for this policy on the government use license and rights as well as on publication costs.

The UW Libraries staff are keeping a close eye on how things proceed and how our colleagues are approaching this nationally, as UW–Madison will need to see how publishers, agencies, and scholars adjust to these new landscape pressures over the next few months as the policy goes into effect.

In the meantime, in addition to ensuring compliance as described above, authors can:

  • Consult with publishers to find out if their publication agreements allow them to deposit an author-accepted manuscript (AAM) immediately upon publication without paying an OA fee.
  • Choose a publisher that allows for zero-embargo deposit of the manuscript in a repository.
    • Currently, Sage and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) have indicated no objection to depositing the AAM in a repository to comply with the requirement.
  • Choose a publisher that is diamond or fully OA and does not charge authors publishing fees.
  • Choose a publisher that has an agreement with the libraries to have publishing fees covered or subsidized. Library Support for Open Publishing.
  • Use research funds to cover article processing fees. If using NIH funds to cover a publishing cost, apply them toward full OA publication fees rather than fees for the right to deposit in a repository.

 

For more information on the updates or public access policy for publications, please see: https://pas.wisc.edu/.  For the most current information about navigating publishing agreements, please see: Navigating Publishing Agreements. The UW Libraries, through the Public Access Service and Scholarly Communication units, is working on communicating these updates to university faculty and staff.

Please note that NIH’s 2023 Data Management and Sharing Policy is still in effect and is not changed by the manuscript policy updates.

Have specific policy or publisher questions?

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