New Policy Calls for NIH-Funded Studies to Be Publicly Accessible

The NIH has announced a new policy calling for increased public access to research articles resulting from NIH-funded studies.

The policy, which is the first of its kind for the NIH, calls on scientists to publicly release their manuscripts as soon as possible, and within 12 months of publication at the latest. As part of the agency's proposal, the peer-reviewed, NIH-funded articles will be available through an internet-based archive managed by the National Library of Medicine, a component of the NIH.

"With the rapid growth in the public's use of the internet, the NIH must take a leadership role in making available to the public the research that we support," said NIH Director Elias Zerhouni. "While this new policy is voluntary, we are strongly encouraging all NIH-supported researchers to release their published manuscripts as soon as possible for the benefit of the public. Scientists have a right to see the results of their work disseminated as quickly and broadly as possible, and the NIH is committed to helping our scientists exercise this right. We urge publishers to work closely with authors in implementing this policy."

Beginning May 2, the policy requests that NIH-funded scientists submit an electronic version of the author's final manuscript, upon acceptance for publication, resulting from research supported in whole or in part by the NIH. The author's final manuscript is defined as the final version accepted for journal publication, and includes all modifications from the publishing peer review process.

For more information on the policy, go to http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/feb2005/od-03.htm (http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/feb2005/od-03.htm).