Public Access
For decades, NIH has pioneered efforts to increase public access to publications resulting from its supported research. The 2008 NIH Public Access Policy has resulted in more than 1.4 million articles reporting on NIH-supported research being freely available to the public in PubMed Central.
Public Access to NIH-Supported Research
Increasing access to publications resulting from federally funded research offers many benefits to the scientific community and the public. Access can accelerate research, generate higher quality scientific results, encourage greater scientific integrity, and enable future inquiry, discovery, and translation for NIH-supported research. Importantly, these efforts also uphold NIH’s commitment to responsible stewardship of the Nation’s investment in biomedical research by improving transparency and accessibility of taxpayer-funded research.
On August 25, 2022, OSTP released updated policy guidance that focuses on accelerated access to scholarly publications, increased access to scientific data, and enhanced tracking of research products through persistent identifiers (PIDs) and metadata. The NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy meets all expectations related to data sharing in this guidance, and NIH has released the NIH Draft Public Access Policy which is out for public comment until August 19, 2024.
NIH Draft Public Access Policy (October 2024)
- NIH Draft Public Access Policy and Draft Supplemental Guidance
- Comments on Draft Public Access Policy
NIH Plan to Enhance Public Access (February 2023)
- NIH Plan to Enhance Public Access to the Results of NIH-Supported Research (NIH Public Access Plan)
- Public Comments on the NIH Plan to Enhance Public Access to the Results of NIH-Supported Research (February 21, 2023 – April 24, 2023)
- Virtual Listening Session on the NIH Public Access Plan
- Advancing the Promise of Open Science: We Want to Hear from You!
- Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research (OSTP Public Access Memo)