NIH makes the peer-reviewed articles it funds publicly available on PubMed Central (PMC). The NIH Public Access Policy requires authors to submit the final peer-reviewed manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to PMC upon acceptance. Papers must be accessible on PMC no later than 12 months after the official date of publication. It is important to plan the method that your articles will be entered into PMC. This method will change depending on the journal publishing the article.

There are 4 ways that articles can be added to PMC:

  Method A: Publish in a journal that deposits all NIH-funded final published articles in PMC without author involvement. Journals that automatically submit articles.

  Method B: Make arrangements to have a publisher deposit a specific final published article in PMC.

  Method C: Deposit the final peer-reviewed manuscript in PMC yourself via the NIHMS.

  Method D: Complete the submission process for a final peer-reviewed manuscript that the publisher has deposited via the NIHMS.

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