Scholarly Communication Issues

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, February 3, 2005

CONTACTS:
Don Ralbovsky
OD Office of Communications and Public Liaison
301-496-5787

NIH CALLS ON SCIENTISTS TO SPEED PUBLIC RELEASE OF RESEARCH
PUBLICATIONS
Online Archive Will Make Articles Accessible to the Public

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced today a
new policy designed to accelerate the public's access to
published articles resulting from NIH-funded research. The
policy - the first of its kind for NIH - calls on
scientists to release to the public manuscripts from
research supported by NIH as soon as possible, and within
12 months of final publication.

These peer-reviewed, NIH-funded research publications will
be available in a Web-based archive to be managed by the
National Library of Medicine (NLM), a component of NIH. The
online archive will increase the public's access to health-
related publications at a time when demand for such
information is on a steady rise.

"With the rapid growth in the public's use of the Internet,
NIH must take a leadership role in making available to the
public the research that we support," said NIH Director
Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. "While this new policy is
voluntary, we are strongly encouraging all NIH-supported
researchers to release their published manuscripts as soon
as possible for the benefit of the public. Scientists have
a right to see the results of their work disseminated as
quickly and broadly as possible, and NIH is committed to
helping our scientists exercise this right. We urge
publishers to work closely with authors in implementing
this policy."

"In developing this policy, we made a concerted effort to
balance the importance of this archive to NIH's public
health mission, with the need to provide flexibility for
authors, their institutions, and publishers in those cases
where immediate release is not possible," Zerhouni added.
"NIH recognizes the importance of preserving quality peer
review and the viability of a diversity of publishing
models. Nevertheless, we expect that only in limited cases
will authors deem it necessary to select the longest delay
period."

The NIH policy will achieve several important goals,
including:

(1) creating a stable archive of peer-reviewed research
publications resulting from NIH-funded studies to ensure
the permanent preservation of these vital research
findings;

(2) securing a searchable compendium of these research
publications that NIH and its awardees can use to manage
more efficiently and to understand better their research
portfolios, monitor scientific productivity, and,
ultimately, help set research priorities; and

(3) making published results of NIH-funded research more
readily accessible to the public, health care providers,
educators, and scientists.

Beginning May 2, 2005, the policy requests that NIH-funded
scientists submit an electronic version of the author's
final manuscript, upon acceptance for publication,
resulting from research supported in whole or in part by
NIH. The author's final manuscript is defined as the final
version accepted for journal publication, and includes all
modifications from the publishing peer review process.

The policy gives authors the flexibility to designate a
specific time frame for public release - ranging from
immediate public access after final publication to a 12
month delay - when they submit their manuscripts to NIH.
Authors are strongly encouraged to exercise their right to
specify that their articles will be publicly available
through PubMed Central (PMC) as soon as possible.

PMC a part of the NIH's
National Library of Medicine (NLM), is the agency's digital
repository of full-text, peer-reviewed biomedical,
behavioral, and clinical research journals. It is a
publicly-accessible, stable, permanent, and searchable
electronic archive.

The release of this policy follows months of intensive
deliberations with representatives of patient and
scientific organizations, researchers, and publishers. NIH
posted the draft policy for public comment in September,
and received and reviewed over 6,000 public comments.

As part of on-going efforts to implement this new policy,
NIH plans to establish a Public Access Advisory Working
Group, as a subgroup of the NLM's Board of Regents. The
Working Group will include representatives of the patient
advocacy, scientific, library, and publishing communities,
and will provide advice on implementation issues and assess
progress in meeting the new policy's stated goals.

Additional information on the new policy and related
documents, including a "Questions and Answers" fact sheet.
<>.

The NIH comprises the Office of the Director and 27
Institutes and Centers. The Office of the Director is the
central office at NIH, and is responsible for setting
policy for NIH and for planning, managing, and coordinating
the programs and activities of all the NIH components. The
NIH, the Nation's medical research agency, is a component
of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is
the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting
basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and
investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both
common and rare diseases.