The NIH Public Access Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research.  The Public Access Policy took effect on April 7, 2008.

Under the Policy, any investigator publishing a peer-reviewed article that results from NIH funding (regardless of the amount of funding received must:

• Upon submission of the article, notify the publisher that it is subject to the NIH Public Access Policy.
• Upon acceptance of the article, ensure that the publication agreement reserves the right to send the manuscript to PubMed Central.
• Upon publication of the article, submit the final manuscript to PubMed Central.
• As of May 25, 2008, upon the investigator's next submission to NIH, include the PubMed Central identification number (called a "PMCID") for previous NIH-funded articles, demonstrating your compliance with the Policy.

The investigator submitting the article and signing the publication agreement will need to assure compliance with the Policy, but the PI has overall responsibility to assure compliance with the Policy and all other requirements of the sponsored projects, whether or not the PI is an author on the publication in question.

Guidance on how to comply with each of these requirements, including sample language, is available at the following University website dedicated to the Policy: http://scholcomm.columbia.edu/nih-public-access-policy/.