Open access to publicly funded journal articles & research data: NIH Manuscript Submission System

Follow the links below to more information in this section.

Authors (or someone they delegate) can submit the final peer-reviewed manuscript (not the final published version) to the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS).  Submitting to NIHMS is the only way an author can submit manuscripts to be added into PMC, if the journal publisher doesn't deposit it for them.

NIHMS provides a number of great tutorials and an FAQ page to help you get started using the system.

This guide includes instructions for completing a typical submission

Note:  Email notifications from NIHMS letting authors/PI's know a submission is ready for approval will come from:

nihms-help@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

For help with the public access policy, authors and Principal Investigators may contact the NIH Public Access helpdesk by email to publicaccess@nih.gov

Read your Transfer of Copyright agreement with the publisher and determine the delay period (embargo), if any, that applies to the published article. The delay period (embargo) is the interval between a manuscript's final publication date and when the author-supplied version will appear publicly in PubMed Central. The delay period is determined and registered in the NIHMS system by the manuscript's Principal Investigator or author, or by the publisher for manuscripts submitted via publisher accounts.

This is important to determine because when you upload your manuscript to NIHMS, the reviewing author will be asked to enter the embargo period, if any, when they are emailed to review and approve the text; this action will determine when the article will be publically available via PubMed Central.  For articles deposited in PubMed Central, this embargo period may last no longer than one year from the official date of publication. If your article was published more than a year previous, no embargo period will apply to the publication.