Open access to publicly funded journal articles & research data: Federal open access plans

Since April 7, 2008, the NIH has required the Principal Investigator (or their delegate) deposit the full text of all journal articles arising from NIH funded research studies into the PubMed Central database http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/. From January 18, 2017 for NIH funded clinical trials involving U.S. Food and Drug Administration-regulated drug, biological and device products, the DHHS also requires the registration of the clinical trial on the clinicaltrials.gov database within 21 days of the enrollment of the first study participant, and that study population characteristics and summary results data be deposited in the clinicaltrials.gov database no later than 12 months after study completion (see entry below for the text of the "final rule"). From January 25, 2023, NIH grant applications, proposals for contracts, NIH Intramural research projects, and other funding agreements, must comply with the final NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing (DMS Policy) described below in NOT-OD-21-013 whereby the NIH requires researchers to prospectively plan for how scientific data will be preserved and shared through submission of a Data Management and Sharing Plan. NOT-OD-17-050 advises that since preprints are not published in peer-reviewed journals, they do not fall under the NIH public access policy.

From January 25, 2023, NIH grant applications, proposals for contracts, NIH Intramural research projects, and other funding agreements, that produce scientific data, must comply with the final NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing (DMS Policy) described in NOT-OD-21-013 whereby the NIH requires researchers to prospectively plan for how scientific data will be preserved and shared through submission of a Data Management and Sharing Plan.

From January 18, 2017, "Responsible parties" (sponsors or the Principal Investigator) of all research studies or clinical trials involving U.S. Food and Drug Administration-regulated drugs, devices, or biological products, are required to register the study in the clinicaltrials.gov database within 21 days of the enrollment of the first study participant, and that study population characteristics and summary results data be deposited in the clinicaltrials.gov database no later than 12 months after study completion.

These NIH data repositories make data accessible for reuse. Most accept submissions from NIH-funded investigators (and others), but some restrict data submission to only those researchers involved in a specific research network. May be searched using keywords. Links are provided to information about submitting data to and accessing data from the listed repositories.

Effective January 1, 2016, USDA grantees will be required to deposit final, peer-reviewed manuscripts in the USDA public access archive system, PubAg http://pubag.nal.usda.gov/

From October 1, 2015 peer-reviewed journal articles resulting from AHRQ grants should be deposited into PubMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/. Authors may use the NIH Manuscript Submission System to facilitate this process if their journal publisher does not do this for them.

Journal articles and data sets resulting from ASPR grants issued after October 1, 2014 should be deposited into PubMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/. Authors may use the NIH Manuscript Submission System to facilitate this process if their journal publisher does not do this for them.

CDC requires peer-reviewed journal articles resulting from CDC grants that were published after July 15, 2013, should be deposited into PubMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/, and CDC Stacks. Revised guidance is due in June 2015 requiring data also be deposited into CDC Stacks http://stacks.cdc.gov/

Effective in the 2016 Fiscal Year i.e. after October 1, 2015, a copy of the peer-reviewed manuscript of DoD-funded research articles must be submitted to DTIC for deposit in a DTIC repository no later than 12 months after the date of publication. An interim publication search box for these journal articles is available on the DTIC website utilising publisher-supplied metada via the Clearinghouse for the Open Research of the United States (CHORUS) and the CrossRef Open Funder Registry. See http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/pdf/dod_public_access_plan_feb2015.pdf

IES funded peer-reviewed Journal articles published after October 1, 2015 should be forwarded to IES for deposit in the ERIC database to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the date of publication. Instructions for deposit are at http://eric.ed.gov/submit/

From October 1, 2015 journal articles resulting from DOE grants should be deposited into the DOE PAGES repository http://www.osti.gov/pages/

Peer reviewed journal articles accepted for publication after January 1, 2017, resulting from EPA grants should be deposited into PubMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/. Authors may use the NIH Manuscript Submission System to facilitate this process if their journal publisher does not do this for them.

From October 1, 2015 peer-reviewed journal articles resulting from FDA grants should be deposited into PubMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/. Authors may use the NIH Manuscript Submission System to facilitate this process if their journal publisher does not do this for them.

USGS funded peer-reviewed Journal articles published after October 1, 2016, should be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the date of publication. As part of this plan the USGS has contracted with Clearinghouse for the Open Research of the United States (CHORUS) http://search.chorusaccess.org/, to provide notification to the USGS of the release of USGS-funded extramural publications on non-USGS publishers’ websites for those publishers participating in the CHORUS service. These extramural publications (i.e., not published as USGS series reports using the USGS in-house publishing process of the USGS Science Publishing Network) and their metadata will then be cataloged in the USGS Publications warehouse https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/, and a link provided to the full-text of the article on the publisher’s website, where free public access will be provided after the embargo period has expired.
• For those publications for which the full text cannot be accessed through CHORUS (publisher not part of CHORUS) or because the publishers embargo period is longer than 12 months, a copy of the accepted manuscript must be forwarded to USGS who will make it accessible through the USGS Publications Warehouse https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/.
Data is required to be forwarded to USGS who will archive a public copy of the data in a USGS data repository and make the metadata publicly searchable in the USGS Science Data Catalog http://data.usgs.gov/datacatalog/.

Under the policy subsection M21 Journal articles published after June 1, 2012 should be deposited in the USAID Development Experience Clearinghouse https://dec.usaid.gov/dec/home/Default.aspx. Under the policy subsection M24 Datasets produced after October 1, 2014 should be deposited in the Data Development Library https://www.usaid.gov/data.

From October 1, 2015, peer-reviewed journal articles resulting from NASA grants should be deposited into PubSpace https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/funder/nasa/ Authors may use the NIH Manuscript Submission System to facilitate this process if their journal publisher does not do this for them.

From October 1, 2016, peer-reviewed journal articles resulting from ACL/NIDILRR grants should be deposited into PubMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/. Authors may use the NIH Manuscript Submission System to facilitate this process if their journal publisher does not do this for them. The agency is working on a plan to mandate deposit of data into a HHS repository after October 2017 (plan forthcoming).

From October 1, 2015, peer-reviewed journal articles resulting from NIST grants should be deposited into PubMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/. Authors may use the NIH Manuscript Submission System to facilitate this process if their journal publisher does not do this for them.

NOAA funded journal articles published after October 1, 2015, should be forwarded to the NOAA Central Library http://www.lib.noaa.gov/ for deposit into a NOAA repository to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the date of publication.

A copy of peer-reviewed journal articles and juried conference proceedings resulting from NSF funded research grants awarded after January 25, 2016, must be uploaded to the NSF-PAR repository http://par.nsf.gov/. The policy is not retrospective and applies to papers published where the supporting grant was awarded on or after 1/25/16. For NSF grants awarded after 1/25/16 the NSF grant reporting website will only permit PI's to cite NSF policy-compliant papers in research progress reports and renewal applications. Only the PI or Co-PI can submit materials - there is no option to assign a delegate to do this for the PI/Co-PI. Articles/conference proceedings should be submitted through the Research.gov website and manuscripts must be saved in PDF/A (Archival) format. Files can be saved in PDF/A format in Word by clicking File > Save As Adobe PDF > click Options > check the PDF/A box and Save. Supplementary material is not required by NSF to be uploaded separately but if desired may be added to the manuscript text and saved as one file to be uploaded. If multiple NSF grants supported the paper it needs only be uploaded once and other PI's can add their grant number later.

Smithsonian funded peer-reviewed Journal articles published after October 1, 2015, should be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the date of publication. As part of this plan the Smithsonian has contracted with Clearinghouse for the Open Research of the United States (CHORUS) http://search.chorusaccess.org/, to provide notification the release of Smithsonian-funded extramural publications on websites for those publishers participating in the CHORUS service. The metadata will then be cataloged in the Smithsonian Research Online (SRO) database http://research.si.edu/, and a link provided to the full-text of the article on the publisher’s website, where free public access will be provided after the embargo period has expired.
• For those publications for which the full text cannot be accessed through CHORUS (publisher not part of CHORUS) or because the publishers embargo period is longer than 12 months, a copy of the accepted manuscript must be forwarded to the Smithsonian Institution main library who will make it accessible through SRO http://research.si.edu/.

Journal articles published after October 1, 2015, should be forwarded to the National Transportation Library for deposit in their repository at http://ntlsearch.bts.gov/repository/index.do to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the date of publication. A data management plan is required and Principal Investigators should forward the location of data sets to the National Transportation Library who will archive a public record of the location of the data in the USDOT Research Hub http://ntlsearch.bts.gov/researchhub/index.do. Technical reports should be deposited in the NTL Digital Library http://ntl.bts.gov/.

Effective December 31, 2015 publications based on VA-funded non-classified research must be made publicly available in PubMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ no later than 12 months after the date of publication.