As of April 7, 2008, the NIH Public Access Policy requires investigators, or designees on their behalf, to submit NIH funded peer-reviewed manuscripts accepted for publication, to PubMed Central, a publicly accessible digital archive. The implementation of this policy is an important step forward in supporting open and broad dissemination of publicly funded scientific research.

This Policy applies to you if your peer-reviewed article is based on research that meets one or more of the following categories:

1. Directly funded in any part by an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 (October 1, 2007- September 30, 2008) or beyond;
2. Directly funded in any part by a contract signed on or after April 7, 2008;
3. Directly funded in any part by the NIH Intramural Program;
4. If NIH pays your salary.

NCSU Libraries is collaborating with the Sponsored Programs and Regulatory Compliance Services to assist researchers at NC State understand and comply with this new NIH Public Access Policy.
This 2-page handout provides an overview of the policy and a 3-step process of ensuring compliance for NC State researchers.

More information for NC State researchers is available here: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/scc/nih.html

Background information on the NIH Public Access Policy, details of the submission process, and other FAQs are available from the NIH public access site: http://publicaccess.nih.gov