General Information
The NIH Library currently provides limited funding assistance in an effort to support authors affiliated with the National Institutes of Health to publish in an open access format.
The NIH Library negotiates agreements with several scholarly journal publishers and offers article processing charge (APC) support to authors employed by NIH. Please be advised that funding applicants must be listed as the corresponding author and the article must utilize both an NIH affiliation and an NIH email address. Library-based APC coverage is currently in a pilot phase based on evolving publisher licenses and therefore a submission request does not guarantee funding. Funding pools may be depleted at any time.
Open Access Publishing Agreements from the NIH Library
The National Institutes of Health Library has agreements with the following publishers that allow you to publish open access in selected journal titles free of charge. See funding request instructions in the table below to submit a request for APC coverage.
| Publisher | Journals Covered | # Articles Potentially Covered Annually | Titles Included | Funding Request Instructions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Company of Biologists | Hybrid and fully open access journals | Unlimited APC coverage | Submit your manuscript to a Company of Biologists journal as a corresponding author and use an official NIH email address. Payment will be transacted directly with the publisher; no further involvement is required by the NIH author. | |
| Microbiology Society | Hybrid and fully open access journals | Unlimited APC coverage | Submit a manuscript to a Microbiology Society journal as a corresponding author and use an official NIH email address. Payment will be transacted directly with the publisher; no further involvement is required by the NIH author. | |
| PLOS | All PLOS journals | One publication (APC) fee payment per calendar year | Submit a manuscript to a PLOS journal as a corresponding author and use an official NIH email address. Payment will be transacted directly with the publisher; no further involvement is required by the NIH author. | |
| Springer, Nature and BioMed Central | Springer, Nature, and BioMed Central (BMC) fully open access journals; Springer hybrid journals only | One publication (APC) fee payment per calendar year | Submit a manuscript to a Springer, Nature or BMC fully open access journal or a Springer hybrid journal as a corresponding author and use an official NIH email address. Payment will be transacted directly with the publisher; no further involvement is required by the NIH author. | |
| Wiley | Hybrid journals only | One publication (APC) fee payment per calendar year |
| Submit a manuscript to a Wiley hybrid journal as the responsible corresponding author and use an official NIH email address. Payment will be transacted directly with the publisher; no further involvement is required by the NIH author. |
NIH Public Access Policy
The NIH Public Access Policy requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication. To help advance science and improve human health, the policy requires that these papers be accessible to the public on PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication. Authors publishing in an open access format are still required to adhere to requirements related to deposits per the NIH Public Access Policy.