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New NIH Public Access Policy Effective July 1

June 26, 2025

The NIH will be implementing their new public access to publications policy on July 1, 2025 with all federal agencies following with similar policies by the end of the year. The new NIH policy requires that manuscripts accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025 should be added to PubMed Central (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.

The Science & Engineering Libraries have created a short video and slide deck providing background on the policy, an overview of publisher responses, and author considerations when publishing under the new policy. 

One of our librarians would also be happy to discuss this at a department meeting or consult with you individually.

In addition to ensuring compliance as described above, authors should consider:

  • Using our Public Access Service and its submission tool BuckySubmit to make sure your accepted manuscript is deposited into PMC 
  • Choosing a publisher that has an agreement with the libraries to have publishing fees covered or subsidized. Library Support for Open Publishing.
  • Choosing a publisher that allows for zero-embargo deposit of the manuscript in a repository.
    • AIP, AAAS, IEEE, Sage, and others already support free zero-embargo
  • Choosing a journal that is fully OA and does not charge authors publishing fees (“diamond OA”).
  • Using research funds to cover OA publishing fees (APCs) whenever possible. 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.

At this time, we 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.


For the most current information about navigating publishing agreements, please see: Navigating Publishing Agreements. Please reach out if you have questions: AskSEL@library.wisc.edu.