Congress considers mandatory NIH public access policy with 6-month window

Congress considers mandatory NIH public access policy with 6-month window

Two Congressional bills include mandatory NIH public access policy requiring posting of agency-funded research papers on PubMed Central within 6 months of journal publication. NIH's public access program is currently voluntary and requests submission of published papers for posting on PubMed Central (PMC) within 12 months of journal publication.

Senators Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) introduced legislation Dec. 7 that also includes a section on publication requirements for research. The primary focus of the Lieberman/Cochran bill is to create an American Center for Cures within NIH that would promote more rapid translation of research into therapies, diagnostics and tools.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is expected to introduce legislation early next year calling for a mandatory, six-month policy. The call for a mandatory policy that would reduce the posting timeline to six months mirrors the conclusions reached by the NIH Public Access Working Group at its Nov. 15 meeting. NIH data indicate that only about 3% of agency-funded researchers currently are submitting their papers to the agency for posting on PMC.

The prospect of a mandatory, six-month policy concerns publishers, who have expressed worry that even a voluntary, 12-month policy could hurt journal revenues and threaten their viability. A coalition of nonprofit publishers has enlisted the support of other Congressional representatives in support of a proposal asking NIH to consider posting research abstracts, instead of full-text articles, with a link to the publishers' websites for the full studies. The publishers said they would provide free access to all studies—not just those funded by NIH—within 12 months of publication. They also said they would provide NIH with immediate access to their journal content for internal use.