Navigating Public Access Policies

Most publishers offer at least one route to NIH public access compliance—often through an open accessoption that may require an APC. The University covers these fees for selected publishers and provides tools to help authors identify journals eligible for APC coverage. Some publishers also allow compliance through self-deposit of accepted manuscripts even when publishing under the subscription model where no APC is levied.  However, because publisher policies change frequently, any static “master list” of compliant journals would become outdated and potentially misleading very quickly.

No.

Each agreement gets negotiated separately usually as traditional read-only agreements come up for renewal. Based on what the publisher has to offer, what the libraries' budgets look like, and whatever funds the VPRs office wants to partner with, the agreements get created.

Agreements, and funding for APCs, are not guaranteed to be renewed every year and are always subject to change. Reach out to a librarian for additional details or if you would like to use a publisher that has an agreement with the University. 

If any NIH grant used to conduct your research is considered open on/after July 1, 2025 and after the manuscript has been peer reviewed you must adhere to the policy.

If only one NIH grant was used to conduct the research and it closed prior to July 1, 2025 then you can adhere to the 2008 policy (12-month public access embargo) even if the manuscript is peer reviewed after July 1, 2025. 

If you’ve used several NIH grants in your research and some are open and others are closed then you must still comply with the current policy if any are still open.