National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy

To help advance science and improve human health, he NIH Public Access Policy requires scientists to submit journal articles that arise from NIH-funded projects to its digital archive, PubMed Central, upon acceptance for publication.

Eligibility Requirements

This policy applies if your peer-reviewed article is based on work (in whole or in part) and arises from:

  • Any funding from an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 or beyond.
  • Direct funding from a contract signed on or after April 7, 2008.
  • Direct funding from the NIH Intramural Program.
  • Employment by the NIH.

Compliance with the policy is mandatory and affects three areas:

Failure to comply with this statutory requirement will delay the processing of NIH continuation funding as well as future awards.

UWM Digital Commons

Once your article is publicly available through PubMed Central, you are also encouraged to submit it to the UWM Digital Commons. This service from the UWM Libraries is a virtual showcase for UWM‘s research and creative profiles. Members of the UWM academic community are encouraged to contribute any completed scholarship for long-term preservation and worldwide electronic accessibility. Content may include:

  • Research papers and reports
  • Pre-prints and post-prints
  • Datasets and other primary research materials
  • Learning objects
  • Theses
  • Student projects
  • Conference papers and presentations
  • Other born-digital or digitized research and instructional materials

UWM Digital Commons is indexed by Google Scholar and other specialty academic search engines. For more information, contact Tim Gritten, Assistant Director of Libraries for User Services.

Additional Resources