Open Access Publishing

By December 31st 2025, all government agencies will update their policies for funding research to ensure compliance with the Nelson memo, with the goal of facilitating open access publishing.  

NIH has already implemented policies to fall in-line with federal requirements. Any research or data funded by NIH and accepted for publication on or after July1st, 2025 must meet the following standards:  

• A final edit of the article, including peer review, must be published to PubMed.  

• This article must be published with no delay, and no later than the Official Date of Publication. 

There may be some variations to consider depending on the policies of the Publishing Journal. For example, the Journal you agree to publish with may still be able to upload a final version of the article to PubMed, or the research authors may be required to submit the files. Submitting articles to PubMed has no payment of fees.  

Also depending on journal and publisher policies, the version of the article submitted must be the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) or the Final Published Article (FPA). Although the journal does not need to be Open Access to meet compliance, the researchers must retain copyright sufficient to share a finalized edit with the public without conflict. Contact the publisher before signing an author’s agreement or a copyright transfer agreement (CTA), and make sure they are aware of the requirements before accepting any offer.