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NIH Public Access Policy Changes Coming July 1, 2025

June 9, 2025

On April 30, the National Institutes of Health announced that the effective date of its 2024 revision of public access to publications and data policies would be moved from December 31, 2025, to July 1, 2025. The announcement was made by NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and does not change the content of the updates.

The updates primarily eliminate the embargo period that previously allowed journals or publishers to prevent the full text of publications added to the NIH’s PubMed Central (PMC) repository from being accessible for up to 12 months.

The updates will require:

  • Peer reviewed publications derived from the direct support of NIH awards and accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025, to be added to PMC by their official publication dates and be made fully accessible on that date.*
  • The author accepted version of the publication to be submitted to the PMC, or, when permitted by a formal agreement between the journal and the National Library of Medicine, the final published article.
  • Awardees to explicitly grant the NIH the right to make manuscripts available in PMC without an embargo, which is similar to rights under the Federal Purpose License.
  • The PMC submission process to remain free.

Failure to abide by the policy, including failure to acknowledge federal funding in the manuscript, may be considered by the NIH when making future funding decisions for the grantee or cause a delay in the continuation of non-competing grant awards.

* Articles accepted for publication before July 1, 2025, will continue to use the NIH’s 2008 (2013) public access policies.

Source: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-101.html

Publication Costs

The updates will continue to allow “reasonable” publication costs to be requested as direct or indirect costs.

According to NIH Policy and Guidance documents associated with the updates, additional unallowable publication costs include:

  • Fees for submission to PMC.
  • Costs for which the institution already pays a fee that would cover the publication, such as a fee to publish in a journal already part of “read-and-publish” agreement.
  • Costs that are charged differently because the author is subject to NIH’s Public Access Policy.
  • Publication costs incurred after the closeout of the award.

See Supplemental Guidance to the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy: Publication Costs for more information.

Government Use License and Rights

“Federal agencies have, by law, certain rights to products resulting from federal funding. For works (e.g., Author Accepted Manuscripts) under the Government Use License (2 CFR 200.315), or its successor regulation, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “reserves 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.” These rights also apply as incorporated into the terms of Other Transaction agreements and applicable contracts (e.g., the rights in data clause within the contract).”

See Supplemental Guidance to the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy: Government Use License and Rights for more information.