Center for Clinical and Translational Science

PubMed Central is the National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature. PubMed Central Reference Identification (PMCID) numbers are required for all publications from NIH funded research. Much of the full-text content in PubMed Central is added directly by authors or journal publishers. PubMed, a different system from PubMed Central, is the database of citations and abstracts to the biomedical and life sciences journal literature. The links in PubMed to the full-text literature are added by University library staff and the full-text content is provided by subscriptions paid for by a university’s library system. It is important to emphasize that the PMCID is not the same as the PubMed Identifier number (PMID).

On May 25, 2008, the NIH adopted a new Public Access Policy which addressed public access to findings from federally supported research. Any publication that results from research supported by federal funds must be made freely accessible to the public. The NIH now mandates that upon acceptance for publication, the article must also be submitted to PubMed Central and must also cite all federal grants that supported this research.

The policy requires that scientists submit accepted, peer-reviewed manuscripts that arose from studies performed with NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central. A PMCID number will then be assigned to the publication. To help advance science and improve human health, the policy requires that these journal papers are accessible to the public on PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication. The investigator is also responsible for selecting the specific (one or more) grants that supported the research described in the publication.

The Public Access Policy states that all NIH applications, proposals, and progress reports must include the PubMed Central reference number (PMCID) when citing an article that falls under the NIH Public Access policy or arose from an NIH award. The PMCID will need to be included on documents such as the Literature Cited section and the Publications List that are included as part of NIH applications, proposals, and progress reports.

All final peer-reviewed manuscripts must be submitted to PMCID through the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system. NIHMS currently accepts submissions from one of the following routes: 1) eRA Commons; 2) NIH Login; 3) HHMI Login; 4) My NCBI (for third party submitters); and 5) publishers that have registered for an NIHMS Publisher Login account.

The scientist must:
• Deposit the final peer-reviewed manuscript files (e.g., Microsoft Word document and figures) in the NIHMS system;
• Indicate the NIH award(s), including the specific year(s) of support, to which the final peer-reviewed manuscript is related;
• Review and approve the release of the PMC-formatted final peer-reviewed manuscript after the NIHMS converts the deposited files to a standard PubMed Central (PMC) format.
• Record the PMCID number after it is assigned for future use in grant proposals and reports.

Some journals will deposit the final, peer-reviewed manuscript files into the NIHMS system automatically. In that case, the scientist will still have to provide the associated award information, and review and approve the final peer-reviewed manuscript. The NIHMS system will send notifications via email when these actions are needed and include a link to the NIH Manuscript Submission system web site. For more information about the NIHMS system, go to http://www.nihms.nih.gov/. An online tutorial is available at http://www.nihms.nih.gov/web-help/index.html.

This Public Access Policy applies to any manuscript that: (1) is peer-reviewed; (2) is accepted for publication in a journal on or after April 7, 2008; (3) arises from any direct funding from an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in fiscal year 2008; (4) arises from any direct funding from an NIH contract signed on or after April 7, 2008; (5) arises from any direct funding from the NIH Intramural Program or an NIH employee. For more information on this policy please visit http://www.rockefeller.edu/library/PMCID.php.