The Policy
The NIH Public Access Policy implements Division G, Title II, Section 218 of PL 110-161 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008). The law states:
The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.
The goals of the Policy are to make the published results of taxpayer-funded research freely available to scientists, health care providers, educators and the general public, to ensure the availability of a long-term archive of NIH-funded research (www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov), and to increase the accountability of NIH for how it spends taxpayer money.
Scope of the Policy
The Policy applies to all peer-reviewed journal articles, including research reports and reviews. The Policy does not apply to non-peer-reviewed materials such as correspondence, book chapters, and editorials.
Principal Investigators and their Institutions are responsible for ensuring all terms and conditions of awards are met. This includes the submission of articles that arise directly from their awards, even if they are not an author or co-author of the publication. Principal Investigators and their Institutions should ensure that the authors are aware of and comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.
When NIH-funded authors need to comply...based on funding mechanism, fiscal year & date of acceptance of publication [Becker Medical Library, Washington University]