The NIH recently notified the extramural community of more rigorous standards for meeting public access requirements for research that arises from NIH funding.
“In Spring, 2013, at the earliest, NIH will delay processing of non-competing continuation grant awards if publications arising from that award are not in compliance with the NIH public access policy. The award will not be processed until recipients have demonstrated compliance. This change will take effect in tandem with NIH requiring the use of the Research Performance Progress Report (RPPRs) for all Streamlined Non-competing Award Process (SNAP) and Fellowship awards in the Spring of 2013.”
Dr. Sally Rockey, NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research, has posted an essay about the new enforcement practices on her blog (http://tinyurl.com/btluno3). Further information can be found at http://tinyurl.com/a9madnm.
The Libraries maintain a web page that can help research investigators comply with the NIH Public Access Policy (http://library.uthscsa.edu/2011/12/nih-public-access-policy-and-you/).
Currently, NIH estimates that there is 75% compliance with the NIH public access policy which requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to the PubMed Central archive upon acceptance for publication. The policy requires that these papers be accessible to the public on PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication.
Many journal publishers automatically deposit the final journal copy to PubMed Central. However, not all journals provide this service and research scientists are ultimately responsible for ensuring that the final accepted manuscript is submitted to PubMed Central in accordance with the policy.
